


Phantom Pain

by beebot



Series: Violent deaths create the worst ghosts [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben Hargreeves-centric, Dissociation, Gen, Ghost Ben Hargreeves, Ghosts, Good Parent Grace Hargreeves, Haunting, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, No Incest, Non-Consensual Possession, Possession, Pre-Canon, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beebot/pseuds/beebot
Summary: Existence as a ghost is pretty terrible until you can move on. Fortunately, Ben has a medium for a brother, and he knows how to take what he wants.(If Klaus were still around, he would say that existence as a medium sucks when one of your siblings is haunting your ass as a bloodthirsty ghost - but he’s not exactly here anymore)
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Everyone, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & The Horror, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Violent deaths create the worst ghosts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982728
Comments: 30
Kudos: 116





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Still haven’t been able to watch season two! Sorry for any details that aren’t season two compliant.

Ben breathes in the early morning air, lungs expanding in his intact chest, and everything is beautiful. 

Wearing a body again makes everything very heavy and sluggish, but Ben’s heart — borrowed heart — is pounding. He can feel the exciting chemical rush of adrenaline making him buzz with energy. Slowly, his awareness of his new body increases. 

His eyes sting pleasantly with tears, but Ben cannot recall who started crying. 

Lying on his back, Ben stares up unseeingly at the ceiling, invisible in the unbroken pitch of the room. The feeling of paralysis fades as he eases into his new body. With it goes the numbness and uncontrollable anger that had dominated every conscious moment for the last few months. The indignant fury and screeching powerlessness seep away, leaving quiet void. Everything is so quiet.

But he’s alive. 

_He’s alive._

Ben’s alive, and he can feel the thudding of his heart, the rasp of his breath, the dryness of his mouth, the way the sheets cling to his chilled sweaty skin. He can feel so much, and he is almost giddy. It’s been months since he’s been able to touch something and feel it.

_He’s_ **_alive_** _._

A choked flare of laughter escapes him, high-pitched and hysterical-sounding, and he has to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle it. 

His heart’s still thudding too powerfully, so much so that he feels like he’s shaking from it, and then he lifts a hand and notices that he _is_ shaking. It doesn’t follow the rhythm of his heart. His hands simply won’t stop their violent trembling. 

Oh. He’s not in very good shape, is he?

It feels like years, not minutes, ago that he saw Klaus struggling with what looked like a panic attack. Maybe he’s still coming down from it? He certainly doesn’t feel panicked. Instead, there’s a new feeling of certainty in his core, like being a ghost was a mistake that he’s finally fixing. 

Ben breathes, and feels his heart beating solidly in his chest. The rhythm slows into something steady and almost hypnotic. 

Distantly, he realizes that he can see the details of the ceiling, cracked white plaster visible as a dark grey beside the darker grey of the walls. As he watches, the coming dawn paints lighter and lighter shades with its delicate touch, until the downy greys are light enough to hint at colours. 

Ben heaves himself into a sitting position and tries to stand, but his legs crumple weakly under him and he falls forward to the ground. 

He props himself up on his elbows and tries to slow the world’s spinning. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. 

When Ben feels like he has regained some strength, he slowly pulls himself to his feet, using the desk for stability. 

Once he can finally stand without fear of his legs giving way again, Ben looks around the familiar room, drinking in the muted colours.

Klaus’s room isn’t very well taken care of, but Ben doesn’t care. 

He runs his fingers over the wood of the desk, feeling its minute unevenness. He flips through books — school books, language books, some fiction. He doesn’t care what he’s looking at, it’s the texture of the paper that’s important. The sharp suddenness of a paper cut gives him pause, but he wants it, in a way. The clean sharp sensation is nothing like the distant, engulfing ache of the Horror, or the dull, numbing pain of existence as a ghost. 

A swathe of warm pinkish orange, soft as a peach, catches his peripheral vision, and he turns. Ben throws open his window and breathes in the freshness of the cool morning air. The fire escape outside his window is slick with dew, and he longs to take off, to just leave, before anything else can come and take this glory from him. He shivers in the pleasantly brisk air.   
  


Ben breathes and senses and _lives_ , taking in everything he can with a clingy, needy desperation. Nothing could take this euphoria from him.

The Horror moves under his skin, there and not there like a phantom limb, and it chitters at him. The sound reverberates in his borrowed bones, echoes at the back of his mind. It’s only spectral, not a true sound. Ben hums aloud softly in acknowledgement. The creature likes it when he hums.

It has noticed his distraction, and it coaxes him back to their task, cooing at him in its way. 

He hadn't forgotten, of course. How could he forget how his father had driven him to his death? How his father had, calm and collected, jotted down notes in one of those damn books of his as Ben lay bleeding on the floor, struggling against the Horror in its throes of bloodlust? Shortly after, his father had called for Mom and _she_ had tried to save him, but by that point he was already dead. The Horror, in its uncomprehending dying spasms, didn't even let Mom near. Trying to fight off nonexistent foes with the last of its strength, even after it was doomed by his death. 

Turns out the eldritch monster he was host to needed him to live. What a joke.

With trembling hands, Ben unbuttons his pyjama shirt and stares at his bare chest. His chest is intact and fine. Overly pale and a little too skinny, but fine. The skin is smooth and unscarred, unlike Ben's own, and he is so overwhelmed in the feeling of sudden _wrongness_ that he shudders.

He squeezes his eyes shut and rests his hand right below his ribs and above his navel, where his portal scars are _supposed_ to be. The skin is too smooth, and too wrong, and he can’t stop himself. The wrongness squeezes at his throat in a senseless surge of panic and unreality. His short nails dig in, fingers clawlike, and rake the skin, because it’s not _right—_

The Horror makes an insectlike noise, utterly alien yet reassuring, and Ben slowly forces himself to relax. He cracks his eyes open and notices long shallow red scratches across his chest where the Horror’s scars are supposed to be.

_Were_ supposed to be. But Ben’s not in his own body anymore, and he never will be again. 

He knows the occasional surges of detached revulsion are a small price to pay to feel well and truly alive.

Ben averts his eyes from his chest. Quickly, with fumbling fingers, he blindly changes into his academy uniform. 

By the time he’s finished dressing, he feels ready to go out there as a real living person without getting overwhelmed. The eldritch creature connected to him clicks and rumbles reassuringly. It, at least, is dependable. 

* * *

Ben is not an evil person. 

He wasn’t in life, and he’s pretty sure dying didn’t turn him evil. 

He doesn’t think of himself as bad, either. It’s the Horror that kills — not him. He’s never hurt anyone he cares about, and he’s never chosen violence over peace, and that’s got to count for something. Okay, he has made some very morally grey choices when desperate, but anyone would do that in his place. Poor decision making is one of the hallmarks of desperation, after all.

Ben wasn’t thinking clearly when he possessed his brother, but he doesn’t regret it. 

Everything is clear for the living. Everything is simple and straightforward. 

Ben didn’t realize how difficult coherence could be until he died. 

For a few days after his death, everything was confusing and messy. But confusion cannot last forever, and in its absence came the _rage_. 

Sometimes he was uncontrollably angry at his brother for abandoning him. 

Usually the fury was directed at his father, for coolly and remorselessly driving him to his death. 

He realized quickly that ghosts were a lot simpler than he had always imagined. Angry echoes, Klaus had called them once, and speaking as one of said echoes, Ben reluctantly agreed. Because, the thing about ghosts? When they felt something they _really_ felt it. Without the body’s chemicals, without the ability to socialize or distract oneself or let an emotion run its course, a feeling would consume everything. Untethered as Ben was, he quickly found that any emotion became the _only_ emotion. A spark of anger is never just a spark. It will burn up a ghost entirely. 

Distantly, Ben knew he didn’t want to torment anybody. But when he saw his brother cower in fear? Fear of him? When the only person in the entire world who could even see him adamantly insisted on ignoring him?

It made him angry. Once Ben became angry, he couldn’t _stop_ being angry.

He had been trying to be understanding. He’d been trying to be patient. But he needed _help_. He was suffering, and the only person who could help him drowned his words in terrified screams. For months he had tried and tried, but Klaus kept ignoring him, and oh, would you look at that? Klaus only bothered to respond to Ben when Ben used a little _power_ and showed he was _serious_. 

He’d tried for months to be patient. But who could be patient with their life in the hands of someone so fickle and selfish?

Eventually, he found he could _take_. 

So he took help instead of waiting for help to be given, and that didn’t make him _bad_. He wasn’t going to do any harm. Well, not to Klaus, or anyone else who mattered. 

Ben told himself he would only stay for as long as he needed to. 

It wasn’t a lie. He fully intended to give Klaus his life back, eventually. If he meant to take Klaus’s life forever, that would mean he intended to hurt his brother, after all, and he could _never_ do that. 

But ‘eventually’ is a long ways away, and life as a bodiless spirit is such a cold, encompassing void.

If there had been any bright side to being drifting and furious, it was that he finally figured out how to summon the Horror without suffering that agonizing, ripping pain in his chest. Instead of reluctantly calling up the creature and having it wrench itself out of the portal, he would reach to it willingly and it would respond with that same vigour. Something about actually wanting the Horror there made the summoning easier. 

The thing was, the Horror _liked_ his fury. It revelled in it, rejoiced in it. When he was enveloped in mind-consuming ghostly rage, the Horror responded eagerly. 

They finally agreed on something. 

* * *

When Ben leaves his room that grey, early morning, he sees his first ghost.

It’s surprisingly jarring. As a disembodied spirit, he had seen all the ghosts that followed Klaus. Klaus was a source of strength to them, after all. Far away from him, only a spirit's strongest emotions survived, leaving a simple-minded misty figure acting out the same loop of actions forever. Near Klaus, things became... not easier, but clearer. The vague collection of impulses that used to be a person resolved into higher definition, and the fog cleared. It didn't clear enough for Ben to think rationally, but at least he could think at all.

He _can't_ go back to that.

Ben is stone cold sober and the first spirit he sees is that of a woman with a broken neck.

She fixes clouded eyes on him and hisses “ _You!”_ with such unhinged fury that he takes a step back.

The woman lunges at him, screaming. He raises his arms to try and fend her off, but she passes right through him, dissolving in an icy rush of stale tomb air. Ben hurries downstairs as quietly as he can before she can reform.

There are more ghosts downstairs. Ben tries not to look too closely at them. In his peripheral vision, he catches a glimpse of an indistinct grey figure with a horrifically stretched, screaming face. Another woman with a broken neck drifts through the wall slowly, a terrible furious scowl on her face, like she’s filled with rage without being able to remember entirely who she is angry with.

  
Trying to ignore them isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s better than nothing. Ben finds them unnerving, even if he sees a lot of himself in them.  
  


Ben ignores the ghosts and funnels his focus into taking in sensations again, until suddenly his siblings are in the room, sweeping him to breakfast.

It’s pretty lucky that everyone ignores him, that everyone is so used to ignoring _Klaus_. It’s a lucky thing that nobody notices how he wolfs down the food like he hasn’t eaten in months, or how he stares at his siblings, stunned into calmness by the unbelievable reality of his situation. It would be pretty nice if the ghosts would ignore Klaus too, but then, Ben thinks wryly, he wouldn’t be here.

Ben doesn’t feel like he’s doing a very good job of blending in. It’s hard when he’s torn between wanting to behave normally so nobody worries, and wanting to come clean. 

Secretly, he hopes that if they knew he was here, they would be happy, and they would want him to stay. He’s only been possessing Klaus for five hours and he already wants to stay forever.

In reality, Ben knows that ghosts are something to be feared. Klaus had been so scared of him. He and Klaus hadn’t been best friends or anything while they were alive, but they’d had a pretty close bond based on their shared distaste for their powers. Even after that, Klaus was afraid of him. No, _terrified_ of him. What if his entire family thinks he’s something horrible?

It’s a small mercy that their father forbids talking during mealtimes. 

He can barely keep it together without any distraction. Ghosts shriek sporadically at him. The first time makes him jump quite badly, but he stays silent, trying not to look at the bloody figure. Thankfully, Vanya doesn’t seem to notice, but Allison looks kind of concerned by his flinching. Even once he manages to ignore the ghosts, he notices Diego giving him a funny look.

Ben bottles up his emotions as best he can and shrinks inward, trying to put as much distance as he can between his mind and the outside world. And forcing calmness through numbness works, at least, or he thinks it does. Diego and Allison both seem to have picked up on something, but Ben is trying to manage so many things that he can’t think of what he’s done wrong. His looks? Posture? There’s just too much going on. There’s so much pressure that it’s a genuine relief when his father orders him to the office. To the office, to see him _alone_.

Ben doesn’t want to move on yet, but possessing Klaus has left him anxiety-riddled and shaky. He needs a plan before he freaks out again. 

* * *

His father sits at the broad wooden desk in his office, taking notes. Ben waits at the open door, arms motionless at his sides, by all appearances calm and collected.

The Horror hisses in the back of Ben's mind and pushes at his skin, again and again, already crooning violence at the sight of the man who caused both their deaths. As badly as Ben wants to try to calm it, he doesn't dare, not in a deathly silent room with his uncannily perceptive father.

Ben scuffs his shoes, trying and failing to manage his nervousness. 

The snap of the shutting book is sharp enough to make Ben jump nearly out of his skin.

“Now, Number Six,” his father begins, his gaze sharp through the monocle. Ben feels his blood drain from his face. 

“Four,” Ben blurts out. His father levels a very stern look at him for interrupting, and he hesitates. “Four, sir. I'm Four, not Six. Six died.”

Reginald fixes him with a look so severe that Ben cannot help but quail under it. “Are you suggesting I cannot distinguish between my own sons, Number Six?”

“...No sir.” He wishes he could shrink back further. How does his father always have such control over him?

His father watches him keenly for a long moment, and Ben has to clamp down on the urge to shift restlessly under the man’s cold, clinical stare. He feels like a frog on the dissection table. 

“Number Six, do you believe your siblings would be happy to know you have returned?”

“Of course they would,” Ben says uncertainly, wary of the talk’s new direction. “They love me. They miss me.”

His father raises his eyebrows and gives the boy a look. “They harbour an emotional attachment to Number Four as well.”

“I didn’t hurt him!”

“You dealt him physical and mental harm. I highly doubt the others would see that kindly.”

Ben is silent. 

“I see no reason to inform them of your attack if you cooperate.” 

“Cooperate?” Ben repeats hollowly. 

“Indeed. The data on this symbiosis could prove valuable.” His father fixes his piercing gaze on Ben again. “You are to take Number Four’s room and respond to his name. Under no circumstances are you to inform the others that you are not him.”

Ben stares. “You want me to take over his life?”

“I believe I made myself clear.” His father’s tones are clipped and cold.

Ben nods slowly, the words creeping through his shock. At his father’s expectant look, he says quietly, “Yes, sir.”

“I give you permission to keep using Number Four as a host for the foreseeable future, but you will be required to train his powers in addition to your own.”

Ben freezes, taken aback. “But… what about Klaus?”

“He is of no concern.”

Ben opens and closes his mouth, confused and speechless.

_He really never cared?_

“Have I made myself clear?” His father asks more forcefully.

Ben nods mutely, stunned and numb.

The numbness doesn’t last long. When confusion dies down, it’s replaced by bubbling anger. Fury, indignant and blinding, rushes through him in a blaze, and in his mind he calls for the Horror.

The flickering tentacles unfurl from his chest with the gusto of piranhas that have scented blood. They lash at his father in a swipe that would send any man flying against the wall, possibly with a broken neck, but Ben hopes his neck doesn’t break because he wants their father to suffer the way he did—

The tentacles pass right through the man in a spectral blue flicker.

He could _scream_. 

Ben is corporeal, since he’s possessing Klaus. The Horror is not. And he has no idea how to hijack these stolen powers to make the Horror come through. 

The Horror screeches in anguish.

Ben doesn't like the thought of killing their father with his bare hands. The Horror's always given him a sense of separation — it's not really _him_ killing people, just a creature that he can only influence at best.

Anyhow, trying to murder someone — even their father — unarmed does put Klaus at risk. Not to mention... His body was so weak from fatigue that it took him forever to go down the stairs earlier. Is Klaus even physically strong enough to kill somebody?

“Number Six, proceed to your standard training room. Pogo will test the extent of your compatibility with Number Four’s powers.”

For lack of a better plan, Ben reluctantly obeys, going to train. He has used Klaus’s powers to interact with things in the physical world before, back when he was a ghost. Maybe with training he and the Horror can learn to do that again. If that seems like a dead end? He can always just steal a knife. 

Pogo calls him “Master Klaus” during training, but there’s a sad look in his eyes, and he never seems to question why he’s checking Klaus for the ability to see ghosts. 

_He knows too,_ Ben thinks with grim certainty.   
  


The idea of Pogo’s complacency is surprisingly painful.

* * *

At first, training is ridiculously easy, and Ben feels a little jealous. Really, Klaus acted like it was the end of the world because Pogo, what, asked him loads of questions about ghosts? Sure, the ghosts were highly unsettling, but Ben could see more than a little of himself in them. He'd been exactly the same a day ago. Anyhow, even if the ghosts cry and moan, at least they keep their distance. They seem to know there’s something wrong with the medium, and stay out of arm’s reach. 

Partway through the day, training changes. Ben would never accuse his father of easing them into anything, but it seems that the morning was almost exactly that. The afternoon is what Ben is used to: training with the Horror. At least, it’s supposed to be. 

It’s his first day of extra special training, and the Horror comes easily when he calls. It almost definitely would have fought his summons if they were still alive. It would've drained his energy and struggled against him so that Ben could have only called it for maybe an hour, not a full day. It would have made every second difficult for him, but they're not the same as they were.

It comes easily when Ben summons it, but it is completely spectral. He can’t even bring it into the physical world for a second. The problem is with Klaus’s powers, not his own, but that doesn’t keep his father from giving him stern, disappointed looks. 

Mastery of the Horror isn't difficult anymore, because Ben isn't trying for that. What's the point in trying to be the master of his own body when he is disembodied?

Maybe it was something about dying together, or something about being so tightly bound while incorporeal, but after a while the two spirits bled into each other, mixing and muddling until they were not entirely Horror and not entirely Ben. The lines between them haven’t been clearly defined since they died. The Horror responds positively, almost affectionately, on occasion, and, of course, Ben’s learned bloodlust. 

Violence and killing aren't new to Ben. He's been ripping apart carcasses since he was eight years old, and ripping apart people since he was thirteen.

Thinking back to mornings where he was thirteen or fourteen - did it matter precisely which? Too young, oh so young, young enough that his voice hadn't even started to change yet. Mornings where he couldn’t get the blood out from under his fingernails, no matter how he scrubbed, and where the taste of it lingered in his mouth. Mornings where the alarm would ring out before the sun had even risen, calling them to action in the brisk early morning air. Riding home, his siblings would sit together in the back of the car, talking excitedly in the post-mission high, as he curled inward and tried to not get blood on whoever was sitting beside him. 

That was usually Klaus. Ben had tried isolating himself from Klaus, too, but his brother had caught on, perceptive as ever to his siblings' feelings. He had patted Ben's bloodied hand without flinching, and assured him, “You're not even in the top ten worst things I've seen _today_ ,” with a cheerful grin. 

Ben never asked if Klaus saw the people the Horror had killed. He really didn’t want to know. After a mission, dealing with his own feelings was difficult enough; he could support his brother after a nightmare or on a particularly bad ghost day, but Ben never felt up to the task right after a mission. At least Klaus never flinched from him, and at least he never seemed too bothered by the blood.

But things change, don't they?

Violence isn't new. Wanting someone dead is.

Ben knows exactly what it is like to kill a man, and for the first time, he vividly wishes that he and the Horror could kill just once more.

Only the first day of training and the Horror attends his every command like an eager puppy, but that hardly matters, doesn’t it? The Horror's no use to anyone while incorporeal, and while Ben quickly establishes his ability to tap into Klaus's passive abilities, active abilities elude him.

As a proper ghost, he’d managed to manifest, snatching at his brother’s powers while blinded by anger. From inside a body, it’s not so easy. But what choice does he have? To leave and have Klaus instantly shut off his powers with all the drugs? To leave and give up treasures like physical sensation and basic interaction?

Ben trains with absolute single-mindedness. He has no choice — he needs to figure out how to consciously access Klaus’s powers if he wants to get his revenge and move on.

  
When Pogo, solemn as ever, dismisses him for the day after hours and hours of training, Ben accepts it gladly. He still feels his final business deep in his core, but he’s tired. It would be so nice to just be quietly social with someone — maybe Vanya, since she always understood his introversion best — but the thought of lying to them drags him down. 

* * *

Diego loiters in his room until he hears the quiet click of the bedroom door next to his. He hadn't even heard Klaus coming down the corridor, his brother’s tread unusually soft. After a moment, Diego steals next door, half expecting someone else skulking about his brother’s room, and opens the bedroom door without knocking.

Klaus is just standing blankly in the middle of his room, staring vacant-eyed at something Diego can't see. His gaze languorously traces serpentine paths on a blank patch of wall, looking lost in patterns that aren't there. Klaus reaches out a hand, palm-up, and makes a soft, dissatisfied sound.

Diego frowns. “Uh... Klaus? You okay?”

Klaus’s head snaps to the side so quickly he must have whiplash, and he stares at Diego with wide, startled eyes. “What? Yeah, I'm fine.” He turns to face Diego, crossing his arms over his chest and hunching his shoulders a little. The way he's curling in on himself looks familiar to Diego, but he can't identify exactly why. Maybe Klaus is cold. He almost seems to be trying to make himself smaller. “What is it?” Klaus prompts, gazing intently at Diego like he’s trying to commit his brother’s face to memory. His eye twitches like he’s exhausted, but he doesn’t seem to notice. 

“I, uh,” Diego fumbles, trying to remember why he'd dropped in. He'd had a valid reason, right? His brother is still staring at him, almost expressionless. “Knife throwing earlier. One landed in here.”

Klaus’s eyes are still locked on Diego’s face, and honestly, it’s really starting to give Diego the creeps. He shifts uncomfortably under the flat stare. “Can I look for it?” Diego prompts, wanting to leave as soon as possible.

Klaus shrugs in one quick, jerky motion, arms still wrapped tightly around his chest. “Sure.” His left hand spasms violently, fingers trembling like they’re barely under his control. He finally breaks eye contact with Diego to frown at his hand, watching the violent spasms die down. 

Diego barely feigns looking for the knife. He gives the room a cursory once-over and then scoops up the short blade, putting it away. 

When he looks back at his brother, Klaus is still staring at his hand, clenching and unclenching it like he’s suspicious of some twinge or possible injury.

“You sure you're okay?”

“Of course I am.” Klaus returns his attention to Diego, narrowing his eyes slightly and tilting his head to the side. “Why?”

“You're acting all sorts of weird right now, bro. Those ghosts still giving you trouble?”

“No. No, the ghosts are fine.”

Diego levels him a no-nonsense look. “Cut the crap. I know a lie when I hear it, and that's a big fat lie. That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard.”

The distant, unfocused look in Klaus’s eyes melts away into something softer. “The ghosts are the same as ever,” he assures his brother. “Don’t worry. I’m good.”

Diego shakes his head. “Whatever,” he mutters, turning to go. If Klaus doesn’t want to talk, Diego won’t try to force him to. 

“Hey, um, Diego?” Klaus says suddenly, before Diego can leave the room. He smiles briefly, an awkward little fleeting expression that looks nearly as out-of-place as the spaced-out look from before. “It's good to see you. Really.”

“Right,” Diego says slowly, hand on the doorknob. “Well. Maybe we can hang out sometime. Tell stories past curfew or something.”

Klaus brightens up, nodding enthusiastically. “Yes! But not tonight, I feel like I’ve been through the wringer. And tomorrow I have special training all day again, so, you know.”

“You seem happy about that,” Diego notes skeptically. 

“What? Oh, no, of course not. But once it’s done, it’s done, right? And then Dad can give up on me for another eight months or so,” Klaus explains far too nonchalantly. “Anyways, who knows? Maybe this’ll be the time I crack the code and figure out where the mute button is on a ghost.”

“Aren’t they already muted? Since you’re on all the drugs, I mean,” Diego asks. His understanding of Klaus’s powers is hazy at best, but he does know that drugs and alcohol supposedly make them easier to deal with. 

“Nope!” Klaus announces. After a beat, he grins. The smile is sudden and a little wooden, but he seems to be relaxing into the conversation, looking a little more himself. “That’s the old me. I’m trying to take better care of myself now, really.” He perks up. “Did I tell you? I’m clean. No more drugs or alcohol. I’m going to try and face things now. No more numbness, and no more hiding from ghosts.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Diego breathes, understanding clear in his eyes. “That’s why you’re acting all weird? Withdrawal and stuff?”

“Yeah. Sorry if I worried you. I’ll be feeling fine in a few days. For now…” he shrugs, smiling crookedly, and Diego’s suspicions drain away. 

“Is there anything I can do to help you stay sober?” Diego asks, his earlier reticence gone. “It’s good to hear you’ve come around. You really need to take care of yourself.”

“Just patience. And could you tell our siblings too? I wouldn’t want them to become worried about me.” Klaus gives a half shrug. “I would tell them, but I think they’ll believe you over me.”

“Probably,” Diego agrees easily. “Hey, lemme know if Luther gives you a hard time about it or something. I’ll kick his ass.”

“My hero,” Klaus teases. His execution of the joking banter falls a little flat, far more subdued than expected, but he can’t be faulted that. Diego doesn’t know a lot about withdrawal, but he knows it’s not supposed to be easy.

* * *

In Klaus’s short time experimenting with drugs, he’d grown to love the warm fuzzy numbness and distance just as much as the euphoria.

Being a disconnected spirit in your own body isn’t like that. It’s chokingly, suffocatingly numb, a cloying sort of nothing that kills the sense of whatever it touches. It’s more like being buried alive.

Klaus is weightless and disjointed, an unstable outline of a person that’s yet to be filled in. He is not entirely there, almost like he’s back on those delightful painkillers Mom gave him when he broke his jaw. It’s solitary confinement with a massive dose of sensory deprivation, and he always thought he’d enjoy silence if he ever got the chance to experience it, but he _hates this_. He feels like he has been dropped into deep space without a spacesuit: drifting, and powerless, and _suffocating_ in the void, his body crystallized completely frozen, just a screaming brain in an unreachable body, and—

His body moves, talks, smiles. He knows with a dream-deep certainty that his body is moving around and playing at ordinary life under someone else’s control. There are little snatches of sensation — a flicker of touch, a glimpse of training, a few minutes’ conversation where he can hear his _own voice_ parroting normalcy — but whenever he desperately reaches for that chink in his prison, blindly throwing his being at the place where the control has worn thin, he is firmly stopped. 

Most often, Klaus gets to see. Little snatches of film, foggy and half-muted, sound fading in and out. A brief glimpse of walking to his father’s office in the full glow of morning. When he throws himself at the sense, trying to displace Ben, he just falls back into blackness. Then, Diego is standing in the doorway to Klaus’s bedroom, looking a little worried, and the light is so drastically different that Klaus just _knows_ time has passed.

Maybe hours. Maybe days. He just doesn't know.

Diego's standing in front of him _right now_ , so Klaus throws himself at the force — at Ben, his brother, oh god — holding him under.

Klaus fights, but he just isn't good enough.

His hand jerks convulsively, and his face twitches several times, and that's it.

He tries to steal control of his voice, too, to shout out, but he doesn't even have the breath to make words. He truly is stuck as a disconnected mind and nothing else.

Ben is holding Klaus under the murky water of his own damn mind, and it's starting to look like Ben is the stronger of the two. It is becoming harder and harder to struggle to the surface for a desperate gasp of air, the barest wisp of consciousness. He doesn't even know how long Ben has been forcing him under.

He doesn’t let himself dwell on the fact that his attacker is his own brother.

He just needs _out_.

* * *

When Ben collapses into bed that night, the softness of the blankets and pillow are deeply soothing. His limbs are uncoordinated with fatigue, and the thought of waking up to a fresh mind and healthy body is more than tempting. 

He shuts his eyes and breathes deeply, willing the weariness to seep out of his bones, and—

_weakly clawing, insubstantial and struggling futilely, desperately something surges and tries to regain_

—his eyes snap open and he is out of bed in a flash.

“What...” Ben pants. “What... Klaus? Was that you?”

There is no response. Ben doesn’t dare relinquish even the slightest fraction of control to check if Klaus really is aware of what’s happening. He tries to quell the guilt. When he’d taken over that morning, he’d assumed— or, hoped, rather— that Klaus would be functionally unconscious. He hadn’t been capable of caring about his brother when he was an untethered spirit, but once he started trying to live again, things changed. Empathy returned.

When he’d felt something pushing faintly at his mind while talking to Diego, when he’d felt the distant tremble of his hands, he’d tried to tell himself they were side effects of fatigue, still hoping Klaus was out of it. But Klaus had been trying to fight him off then, and again now. The bitter desperation is sharp in his chest, and Ben doesn’t know whose it is. Maybe they’re sharing feelings now, too.

A later attempt to sleep gets the same result. There is no fade out, there is no relaxation. Every time he starts to loosen his grip on consciousness he’s suddenly assaulted by waves of fear and anger as Klaus tries to throw him back out. Apparently it is dangerous for him to get too comfortable and let down his guard. He’s not exactly a guest, after all. 

Ben doesn’t sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben can have a little possession. As a treat.
> 
> Diego: I’ll kick everyone’s ass. I’ll kick my own ass. Fight me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: self harm

By the time the sun rises, Klaus isn’t the only one haunting Ben. 

The ghosts have lost their shyness. They’ve probably forgotten that Klaus changed at all — Ben can remember how hard it was to pay attention to living affairs as a ghost, as if things stopped being important enough to remember once he died. Now, they’re back to harassing him. 

The ghosts are nothing if not persistent.

There aren’t even that many of them, only four or five. Ben’s simply not used to having the full intensity of their hatred directed at him.

It’s exhausting, even if they do keep calling him Klaus.

A ghost, one of the ladies with the broken necks, tries to claw at him. He can’t help it; when the rotting hand slashes at his face, swiping harmlessly through his eyes, he flinches. The other ghosts press closer, as if remembering that he is cursed with perception.

Ben curls up under the blankets and covers his ears, too exhausted to keep struggling against the horde of fellow undead. 

He wants nothing more than to just sit quietly with Vanya and take in the peaceful, comfortable silence. Sometimes, when everything got too overwhelming, he used to just read with her. Diego had laughed at them once for that, for saying that reading silently together was fun. But for Ben, it really was. Sometimes he wanted to be around his siblings but he didn't feel up to talking, and Vanya understood that. There was something almost meditative in how undemanding it all was.

Ben can't exactly do that now. If nothing else tells them that something's wrong with Klaus, that certainly would.

Not to mention, the silence isn’t really _silent_ anymore, is it?

_Klaus!_ they shriek, and sob, and wail. Ben tries to cover his ears more tightly. 

The awful screaming just won’t _stop_.

“I can’t help you,” he tells them pleadingly. He cannot even hear his own voice through the cacophony. “I don’t know how. I’m not who you’re looking for!”

The Horror growls protectively, and this time Ben doesn’t try to calm it. After all, if nothing else, the full day he spent attempting to manifest it for just one second has confirmed that his entity is firmly intangible, and that’s not about to change. 

With yesterday’s failures in mind, he gives in to its low burbling cries and releases it from his body. 

The Horror lashes out at the ghosts, sweeping them away. It’s an instant relief to feel the cold touch of dead hands vanish. 

The tentacles crush whatever ghosts don’t clear away fast enough, wringing them into spectral dust and scattering the fragments. 

They’ll reform soon. He doesn’t care. 

For one moment, there’s blessed silence. Total stillness. 

“Master Klaus.”

Ben groans, squeezing his eyes shut and scrunching his hands over his ears. “Won’t you be quiet?” he pleads.

“Excuse me?”

Ben cracks an eye open, and realizes belatedly that Pogo is at the door, frowning. 

“It’s the ghosts,” he tells Pogo, and Pogo’s frown softens into something sadder. 

“Not used to them yet, I see,” he sighs.

“You know, don’t you?”

Pogo looks at him for a long moment, and then turns away. “Get dressed and come downstairs… Master Klaus. It’s time for breakfast.”

* * *

“It seems that Number Four has decided to join us at last,” his father says icily when he arrives at the table. 

Ben blushes under his father’s stern gaze and his siblings’ curious looks. “The ghosts were really loud,” he mumbles, hunching his shoulders. “I didn’t hear the bell.”

He takes his seat as quietly as possible, as if that would make up for the interruption. Already avoiding everyone’s eyes in an attempt to postpone the inevitable questions, he doesn’t notice Allison and Diego exchange looks. 

The children have never been allowed to speak during mealtimes. Their father always plays dull instructional records during meals instead, vastly preferring the droning tracks to children’s happy chatter. 

Not like that ever stops the kids. They’re forbidden from talking, not communicating. 

Ben is pushing around the food on his plate with disinterest, his mind still on the ghosts, when someone kicks him hard on the shin. He jolts and glances up in confusion, his eyes meeting Diego’s. 

Diego nods upwards and raises his eyebrows questioningly. Probably _are you okay_ or something like that. 

Ben shrugs and glances back at his food. He’s not really feeling up for conversation, so he starts picking at his breakfast, hoping Diego will take the hint. Diego is great to have fun with and all, but Ben’s about as likely to have a heart-to-heart with him as with Luther. He’s just always been a bit closer to his sisters there.

Another, harder kick on the shin. 

Ben gives his brother a halfhearted scowl and puts his hand up in the universal sign for stop. _Later_ , Ben mouths silently, and after a moment Diego nods. 

It’s barely a minute later when Allison subtly elbows him. 

When he looks over, Allison gives him an encouraging smile and sneakily shows him a flash of rich, royal purple in her blazer pocket. It takes a moment for him to recognize the thing as a small bottle of nail polish. 

The thought is nice. He knows Allison is trying to cheer him up, and the fact that she is trying does actually raise his spirits a little. 

But Ben’s never liked makeup, not even the little stuff like nail polish, and even _Vanya_ sometimes likes that. Right now, the last thing he needs is another thing making him feel foreign in his skin. 

He gives a tight, awkward smile and shakes his head no. When he looks away from Allison, he can feel her eyes on him. He deliberately does not look up at Diego, either, trying to keep to himself. 

* * *

Ben doesn’t leave the breakfast table quickly enough. The second they’re out of their dad’s line of sight, Allison pounces. 

“What is going _on_ with you?”

“Nothing,” he manages a tired smile, trying to act normal. “I’m fine. All good.”

She gives him a critical once-over. “You don’t look good. Your hair's really messy.” 

"Oh. Yeah? I haven't looked at a mirror yet today," Ben says blandly, running a hand through the familiar curls and trying to finger comb them into something straighter. Allison frowns at him, looking more and more worried, so he tries to joke, "Not even my _hair_ wants to be straight today."

"Rough night?"

“You could say that,” he sighs, and then, a little belatedly, remembers that he’s supposed to be Klaus, and Klaus would downplay his own feelings. The blatant impersonation doesn’t sit right with him, but what choice does he have? So, he smiles and shrugs it off. “I’m just too universally beloved. The ghosts can’t get enough of me. Teach me how to sign the _fancy_ autographs, will you? Maybe that’s what they’re after.”

Allison rolls her eyes, but she smiles back. “You haven’t even seen my latest signature. I think you’ll really like it. Tonight?”

“I’ll be by before curfew,” Ben confirms. He stops. “Oh, wait. Darn. Maybe not tonight, I have special training again. It ran pretty late yesterday, so I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, then—”

“No, I really want to spend time with you. Tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

His gaze catches the bathroom door, and he slows. “You go on, I’ll be a moment. I’ve got to…” he gestures vaguely at his face and she nods understandingly.

Ben quickly ducks into the bathroom just to touch up his appearance and fix his hair. He looks into the mirror and regrets it instantly.

Klaus is pale, more so than usual. The dark circles around his eyes make him look gaunt and haunted. His hair is like a rats’ nest, uncombed and unwashed and sticking up every which way. He looks sickly and exhausted, and Ben’s heart aches at the sight. 

Guilt steals away his breath, squeezing his chest. Still, it’s not strong enough. He doesn’t consider freeing his brother for a second. 

Ben makes the mistake of looking into his eyes.

Seeing Klaus so dead-eyed, with such artificial-looking expressions, is deeply unsettling to him. Even though he _knows_ what he's done, seeing the reality of it, seeing the little twitches, the flicker of horror in his _own_ — his _brother's—_ eyes leaves him with a visceral urge to run. 

Suddenly, he's moving without his consent.

Klaus had been quiet since Ben stopped trying to sleep. The persistent attempts to regain control had stopped sometime in the early morning, around when the ghosts had started flocking to them. Even once they got up — well, the short of it was that Ben hadn't felt anything from him in hours. He had been starting to get a little worried, actually, that in being so forceful he'd done his brother some harm.

It takes Ben completely by surprise when Klaus tries to wrench control away again. 

Ben is much stronger than him, but momentary surprise gives Klaus a few bare seconds of control.

Klaus lunges forward. 

The crunch of impact. Blood dripping down the mirror.

  
There is a sharp bright bite of pain in Ben’s left hand, too bright and blinding to focus on. He pants, trying to catch his breath. Thin little rivulets of blood trickle down, following the cracks in the mirror's shattered surface.

Carefully, gently, Ben pulls his hand back. A few small pieces of mirror fall, tinkling, into the sink, but most remain in place. His knuckles glitter redly, cuts shining with crystalline mirror dust and glass splinters. Everything feels distant. His horrible deathlike visage is no longer clear in the mirror, at least, fractured until it can no longer affect him. The Horror rumbles at him, a deep sound simply meant to comfort Ben. 

There’s a sudden pressure on his mind as Klaus tries to take control again, and Ben snaps out of his pained shock. Klaus throws himself into the attack, managing to jolt his head forward a bit, but not enough. 

Suddenly, Ben realizes what he’s up to. The horrible mental image of Klaus slamming his head into the glass is so vivid he already recoils from it.

Ben grips the edges of the sink tightly and tries to reassert total control, oblivious to the blood from his knuckles running into the basin. 

"Oh my god! What are you _doing?_ " Allison’s voice cuts through it all. 

Ben takes a wobbly step back from the bloody, shattered mirror. 

"I... uh..." he fumbles helplessly. "The... there was, uh..."

"Why did you—? Nevermind. C'mon, I'll take you to Mom."

Allison grabs his uninjured hand and hurries him along, almost running. 

“You didn’t need to do this! If you wanted attention, you could’ve just asked to spend time with me,” she says curtly, eyes fixed ahead. “And you _know_ Dad’s going to be super mad if you broke your hand just because you wanted out of special training again.”

“I didn’t— what? I wouldn’t do that,” Ben protests weakly, stumbling along as he tries to keep up. 

“Su-u-ure,” Allison says, and Ben can’t see her face but he can tell by her tone that she rolled her eyes. “Like when you slipped in June and got a concussion the day before you were supposed to have special training again? Sure you wouldn’t. Don’t make me rumour you into not being lazy.”

“Okay, okay, don’t rumour me,” Ben replies automatically, more focused on what she said than on maintaining a conversation. 

As much as he hates to admit it, Klaus might hurt himself to get out of something truly awful. But training isn’t awful. Ben did it yesterday, and it was tiring, but perfectly bearable. So, why…?

They arrive at the infirmary before Ben can figure out a way to ask that wouldn’t rouse suspicion. 

“I’ll be back in a sec, and you know Mom will know if you steal any meds,” Allison says warningly, and then she runs off to get Mom. 

Mom returns without Allison, who was already late for training. When she glides in, she gives her son a little smile, not looking surprised in the least. 

“Another accident?” She asks, her tone gently chiding. Ben shrugs, trying to school an appropriate reaction.

Mom fusses over him for a moment, trying to make him comfortable. Then, she gently begins to pick out silvery shards of mirror, some no bigger than splinters. 

The pain takes Ben by surprise. 

The stinging sharpness is much more jarring than the moment of impact was. His fingers twitch and he tries to force down a reaction. 

Mom gazes into his eyes, looking concerned. “Would you like anaesthetic, sweetheart?”

“ _No!_ No, I-I’m fine, I don’t need—”

The attack from within takes him by surprise. Ben’s injured hand jerks violently to the side, hitting Mom’s arm. It’s a weak slap, but the thousand little cuts scream out at the contact. He hisses in pain, clenching his uninjured hand. 

Mom watches him with mild, puzzled eyes. “Dear, you need to stay still. Here, let me give you something for the pain.”

“No!” Ben gasps, even as he feels the faint curl of someone else’s victory in the back of his mind.

Mom is already moving to the medicine cabinet. 

“Grace, what are you doing?”

Ben has never been so relieved to hear his father’s annoyed voice. 

Mom pauses, turning smoothly to face her creator. “Klaus hurt himself. I was going to administer a local anaesthetic.”

“The boy is an _addict_ ,” Dad says, his lip curling in distaste. “Don’t encourage his habits. This is simply more of his drug-seeking. You are forbidden from giving him any medication without my express permission.”

Mom hesitates, and then nods slowly, reluctantly. “I understand.”

In lieu of painkillers, she simply takes his uninjured hand and says, “You can hold my hand as tightly as you like. You don’t need to worry about hurting me.”

She tries to be as gentle and precise as possible, but the delicate little tweezers dipping into the cuts are still agony. 

Father watches impassively until Mom finishes carefully cleaning the cuts. 

“Leave us.”

Father stands in front of Ben. Ben takes a slow, measured breath, and then looks up. 

“What is the meaning of this?”

Ben tenses. “It was an accident. I saw a ghost.”

“Hmph. If Number Four could deal with them, I should expect that you would be capable of the same, at _least_.” Father glances at him coldly through the monocle. “I thought that you were more competent than him. Don’t prove me wrong.”

Ben’s face burns with shame and anger, but he has the sense to stay silent.

“You have thirty minutes to rest. At half past eight, we will begin training,” his father says briskly.

Weary from sleeplessness and his aching hand, Ben doesn’t pay attention as he walks back to his room. 

Ben’s plans are vague — maybe splash his face with water, try to wake up a bit? Even if their father allowed caffeine in the house, he wouldn’t risk it — but walking on autopilot, he doesn’t end up at the bathroom.

Without even noticing, Ben has gravitated toward Vanya’s room.

Vanya is sitting cross-legged on her bed, leaning forward and reading a book. She almost looks painted, she is so quiet and still.

Ben hesitates, and then steps cautiously across the threshold.

Vanya glances up. "Oh, uh, hi, Klaus," she says with an uncertain little smile. "What's up?"

"Nothing, I just..." he hesitates. "I just wanted to sit with you. Is that okay?”

Vanya blinks. “Sure...?”

Ben sits cross-legged on the bed beside her, looking awkward and uncertain. 

Vanya tries to get back to her book, but the silence is so loud that she finds herself rereading the same sentence over and over again. When she looks up, her brother is staring at her. 

The words die in Vanya’s mouth, and she balks. “I... Uh… What happened to your hand?”

Ben shifts, glancing a little self-consciously at his bandaged knuckles like he only just remembered them. “I slipped.”

“Are— Are you sure you’re okay?” She tries again timidly. 

Ben tries to smile. “I guess I’m not feeling like myself right now.”

“Yeah, I’d say,” she agrees. 

The lie he told Diego is on the tip of his tongue. It’d be so easy to tell his sister _I’m acting funny because I quit taking drugs_. It’d be such an easy lie, and she would believe him completely, he knows she would. Vanya is always so trusting. 

So Ben says, “No, I’m really not myself.” He runs his good hand through his hair. “I’ve got a new ghost power,” he confesses. “I can let ghosts stay inside me for a while.”

Vanya stares. “Stay... inside you? Is that why you’re so off?”

Ben hesitates, and then nods. 

“Okay, that doesn’t sound great,” Vanya admits. “But still. I can’t imagine. A new power.” A wistful tone enters her voice. “What’s it like, Klaus?”

“Not—” Ben swallows, his throat dry, and tries again. “Not Klaus.”

Vanya freezes. Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open in shock, and for a second Ben’s struck with the irrational panic that his quietest sibling will scream. She stares at him. “What?”

He hurries to amend things, stumbling a little on his words. “Don’t freak out! I’m not— it’s me! I’m Ben.”

Vanya’s eyes get even wider, and he tries to give her a reassuring smile, but it feels artificial and forced. She looks a little faint, and Ben is absurdly grateful that they’re having this talk while already sitting on a bed, just in case.

“Ben?” She repeats distantly. 

He nods encouragingly. “Klaus is helping me with my unfinished ghost business. And I’m helping him, too. I’m helping him quit taking all that garbage he’s been on.”

“He really brought you back?” Vanya asks tentatively. “It’s really you?”

Ben smiles warmly. “Yeah. It’s me.”

Tears well up in Vanya’s eyes, and she hugs him suddenly, an abrupt tight squeeze. Ben hugs her back, reassuringly firm, and he can feel her shoulders shake as she cries. 

Klaus had gone through a growth spurt recently, leaving him a little more than a head taller than his sister. Ben rests his chin on Vanya’s head. She presses her face against his shoulder, sniffling and hiccuping quietly. 

"I missed you," she whispers once her breathing has calmed.

"I know. I missed you too."

She holds him tighter, and then looks up at him. "Don't leave again," she begs.

“I promise,” Ben tells her. “I’m going to stay as long as I can, I mean it.”

“Good. You’d better.” Vanya rubs her eyes, trying to compose herself. “Everyone misses you so much. They’re going to be so happy to see you.”

“You think so?” Ben hesitates, and then shakes his head. “I can’t tell them. Not yet. I know how bad this looks, and— I just, maybe it’s better to finish what I have to do and _then_ talk to them. I think they can wait. It’ll just be a few days.”

Vanya looks uncertain. “I don’t know, it feels kind of like lying… Why’d you tell me, then?”

Ben gives her a soft little smile, kind and fond. “I couldn’t not tell you. I don’t think I could ever hide things from you, Vanya.”

She gives Ben a watery smile in return. “I’m so happy you’re back,” she says. “The others just aren’t the same.”

  
They lapse into silence again, a warm and comfortable silence broken up by Vanya occasionally confirming once again that Ben’s really here. He spends his entire thirty minutes of free time with Vanya, and it’s time well spent.

* * *

Pogo dismisses the teenagers from physical training early, instructing them to study. There’s a distracted air about him, and he barely even takes the time to assign their study materials before he takes off. 

Luther is the one who calls his siblings together for an emergency meeting.

“I wouldn’t say Klaus and I are the closest,” he starts, and Diego translates this to mean _maybe someone who cares enough to pay attention to him can help me out here_. “But he’s been acting weird the last few days. I would’ve guessed drugs but something’s not right.”

“I agree. Something’s up,” Allison says, considering her brother attentively. 

Luther takes a deep breath, and then speaks quickly. “He’s been really quiet and moody, and — Allison, you said he hurt himself this morning, right? I think he’s depressed.”

“He’s not _depressed_ , you idiot,” Diego scoffs. “Yeah he’s klutzy, but he’s too much of a wuss to hurt himself on purpose and he’s too scared of ghosts to become one.”

“Diego!” Allison exclaims. 

“What? It’s true!” Diego bites back. 

“Oh, and _you_ have a better idea?” Luther replies heatedly.

“You know what? Yeah! I do!” Diego gives Luther his best unimpressed look. He over-enunciates when he next speaks, partly for emphasis and partly to make sure he doesn’t lose control of his stutter in the heat of the moment. “If you had tried _asking_ him, you know, like a _normal_ human being, you would know that he’s going through withdrawal!”

“Guys!” Vanya tries to interject, but nobody listens.

Luther shakes his head disbelievingly. “That doesn’t sound right. Do you really think he would ever give up drinking and drugs? I mean, come on. Be real.” 

“He seemed totally sober to me! Anyway, what kind of dumbass looks at someone who’s trying to make their life _better_ and thinks ‘must be depressed’? Sounds like the opposite to me! Sounds like he’s thinking for once!”

“Would you listen? He explained everything to me!" Vanya says insistently, and her brothers pause. 

Diego nods at her. "That he's quit drinking, right?"

"No! That..." She takes a breath. "That he's got a new power. Didn't he always say that alcohol shut off his powers? Maybe that's why he quit taking stuff!"

"A new power?" Allison echoes, frowning.

Vanya nods. For once all eyes are on her, and the feeling of her own temporary importance wells up. She can’t remember the last time everyone’s been interested in what she had to say. "He told me he can summon specific ghosts and let them possess him."

Diego frowns. "And you're saying he quit smoking pot for _that?_ Are you kidding me? 

“Wait,” Allison interrupts. “Are you saying Klaus isn’t… Klaus?”

Vanya nods and opens her mouth, but before she can speak, Diego cuts in again. “Klaus hates his powers. Why would he want a ghost around?"

Vanya leans forward a little, breathlessly. "Because it's Ben."

For a moment, there's silence. 

Then, cacophony as Diego, Allison, and Luther all speak at once.

"He told us different stories, so I don't think—"

"I cannot _believe_ he would say—!”

"Guys, I think he's had some sort of mental breakdown—” 

“Oh, so your options are crazy or depressed, that’s it?” snaps Diego in response to Luther. “You just think it’s all in his head, admit it!”

"I mean, it's the most likely thing! What, you think he not only found Ben's ghost, but figured out how to invite him in, all at once?” Luther asks dismissively. He shakes his head. “Obviously what we need is to tell Dad. He’ll fix this!”

Diego snorts. “Yeah, I wouldn’t count on that. _You_ might be good enough for Dad, but he’s never liked Klaus as much.” Diego shakes his head, his expression darkening. “You know, for Number One, you’re not much of a leader,” he mutters with a scowl. 

Luther bristles, looking ready to fight. “What was that?”

“You heard me! Five’s gone, Ben’s dead, Klaus is all sorts of messed up, and you _still_ just want to sit back and let Dad be the boss! How long’s it going to take you to get through that thick head that he doesn’t care about us?” Diego snaps. 

As Luther and Diego bicker, Allison glares thunderclouds at nothing in particular. 

"I just can't believe Klaus would say that to you," she says angrily. "I can't believe I thought anything was below him! What a horrible thing to joke about!"

"He seemed really genuine," Vanya protests weakly.

“That’s just because you’re not good at catching lies. I can’t believe he would lie so openly to you! Did he laugh after he said it? Because if he made fun of you to your face...” Allison shakes her head, looking murderous.

“No!” Vanya says hurriedly. “He didn’t make fun of me. He just wanted to be near me!”

Allison doesn’t say anything. She doesn't need to; her _poor gullible Vanya_ is so obvious she could’ve shouted it.

Diego breaks away from his petty arguing with Luther to add his opinion. “Y’know, he _is_ enough of an asshole to tell her that sort of thing.”

“He wasn’t lying,” Vanya says, glancing between her siblings. “He can’t have been.” She starts to tear up. “He wouldn’t, not about that.”

Allison embraces her. “I know, I know, I want Ben to be here too. Klaus was just being thoughtless, don’t cry…”

“I don’t want Ben to be gone,” Vanya sniffles. 

“I know,” Allison soothes.

  
She doesn’t know what the hell is going on in Klaus’s head, but he had better have a _damn_ good reason for tricking Vanya so cruelly.

* * *

A firm knock at Ben’s door interrupts his quick search for a sweater. It’s a pleasant surprise to see Allison standing there. He smiles. “Oh, hey! Sorry, we were gonna hang out later, right? I totally forgot, but now’s not great, Dad’s expecting me...”

Allison isn’t in the mood to waste time. 

“Why did Vanya just tell me you’re Ben?” She asks, deadly serious, and Ben feels his heart stop. 

Ben’s tempted to say it’s a dumb prank, and he could probably get away with it, but it would feel like a betrayal. He’d still get chewed out, too; everyone knows Vanya’s off limits when it comes to pranks. 

“Did you believe her?”

Allison laughs once, an abrupt sound of disbelief. “Uh, what? Of course not!”

_Of course not,_ he thinks without any relief. 

“I wouldn’t prank Vanya,” he insists calmly. “I’m a ghost.”

“Cut it out,” Allison says in mounting annoyance, giving him a look. 

The irony of the situation rests heavy and bitter on him. After all, he’d first lost his temper because Klaus kept ignoring him. Klaus had dismissed him as irrational and unreasonable like every other ghost.

Just his luck that the one person he is capable of possessing is the only one that nobody wants to listen to.

“I heard a rumour you told me the truth,” Allison says firmly, clearly running out of patience. “Are you possessed?”

The power seizes control before he can do anything.

“Yes,” Ben blurts out, physically unable to stop himself.

Allison freezes, struck speechless.

Panic seizes Ben, and he wants nothing more than to slam the door and retreat from the situation. He can’t, though, not when Allison is staring at him in shock and horror. He knows what their father said but he can’t just let her think he’s some sort of...of _monster_. Some strange savage ghost come to rip their family apart, because he _isn’t_ , he _loves_ them. 

Ben gives her a tiny nervous smile, looking very uncomfortable. The thought of his siblings rejecting him because of everything is too much to bear. “It’s really me. I really am Ben.” He pauses, choosing his words carefully. “Klaus is, uh... I’m borrowing his body right now. That’s what mediums do, right? Help ghosts who are stuck, like me?”

For a second, all he sees is how Allison’s eyes light up in surprise. The victory is sweet. His sister looks so happy to see him.

“You can— Klaus really can do that?” she breathes wonderingly.

“It took me by surprise too,” he tells her. “I didn’t have any choice. I needed his help.”

“Diego told us you were going through withdrawal.”

“Don’t worry,” he assures his sister. “I’ve quit taking drugs and stuff, but I don’t think ghosts get withdrawal symptoms.”

“Then why are you shaking?”

“Huh?” Ben glances down and notices the way his hand is spasming. As soon as he notices it, he reaches out within his mind and crushes down the attempt at resistance as hard as he can, reasserting his stranglehold. “Oh. That. It’s not easy to keep me here,” he explains. “Klaus isn’t used to using his powers so much. He’s working very hard to manage them now.”

Allison nods sympathetically. “You said you needed help?”

“I need to move on,” Ben forces out. It’s true, but he has a little trouble saying it. What he needs is to murder. 

“Move on..? What do you need to move on?”

“Revenge,” blurts Ben — it’s almost impossible to work around her truth rumour when she asks him a direct question — and Allison goes very still again. 

“Revenge?” She repeats. “What do you mean?” Her voice is deadly serious.

Ben is silent.

“Ben, what do you _mean_ , you need revenge?”

“Dad caused my death,” Ben says softly.

“You aren’t— Are you going to _kill_ him?”

“He deserves it!”

“You can’t do that! Mom and Pogo aren’t legally people, you know that! You want us to go into orphanages and foster homes?” 

“I can’t worry about that,” Ben says quietly. “You’ll be fine. You have each other, and your powers. I only have this.”

Allison stares at him for a moment, tight-lipped.

“How’d you get hurt this morning?” She asks in growing suspicion. 

“It was— Klaus and I— Klaus did that, not me.”

Allison nods slowly, still watching her possessed brother. “Can I talk to Klaus?”

Ben goes still, staring at Allison. "Why? You don’t need to. He's fine."

“I just want five minutes. Let me talk to him.”

“He’s not awake right now,” Ben forces out. “And it’s uncomfortable to switch who’s in charge. Really disorienting. He’s so tired, just let him rest.”

“I want to talk to him,” Allison says with quiet firmness. “ _Please._ ”

“Why? I know more than he does, and I’m easier to talk to. He’s not exactly the most direct person.” Ben’s eye twitches as he stares her down. “You can talk to him later. Not now. So would you calm down? You’re worked up over nothing.”

“Stop holding our brother hostage!”

“No.”

“What do you mean, _no?_ ”

Ben’s voice is so low that it’s nearly a whisper. “I’m your brother too.” He fixes his sister with a wounded expression. “You’re acting like I’m some kind of monster.”

“You attacked Klaus!”

“I never hurt him!” Ben insists. “I’ve been better to him than he has!”

It’s a weak argument. Even Luther could tell Klaus looked like hell. 

Allison takes a breath. "I heard a—”

Ben clamps a hand over Allison’s mouth before she can finish the sentence, and she cuts off with a muffled yelp of surprise. "Just be quiet, please!" he begs. "Why is this so bad? Why do you want me gone?"

She shakes her head miserably, a pleading look in her eyes. 

"Are you going to rumour me if I let you go?"

After a long moment of hesitation, she shakes her head again.

"Sorry if I scared you," he says, letting her go. Despite the gentle tone of his voice, his frame is as tense as a coiled spring. Allison knows that if she tries again he'll be on her in a flash.

She swallows and asks weakly, “You’re really going to kill Dad?”

“I can’t move on without revenge.”

“Then don’t move on! Stay here, with us!”

Ben shakes his head sadly. “You have no idea what it’s like to be a ghost,” he tells her. “It’s unbearable.” He runs a hand through his hair, tugging at the curls. “I wish I wasn’t dead. I don’t want to be dead, I don’t. I want to be alive.” He glances at Allison, a sad look in his eyes. 

“I know,” Allison says softly. “I want you to be alive too. But you can’t do this forever.”

“It’s not going to be forever,” he assures her. “Once I’ve got my revenge, we can take some time to figure this out.”

He grabs a sweater out of the drawer and pulls it on. “I need to go now,” he tells her calmly. “Dad’s very interested in how my powers work with Klaus’s. He wants to do lots more training.” A small smile appears on his face. “We’re figuring out how to bring the Horror back through. And then maybe Dad can meet it again. It _really_ wants that.”

Ben pauses at the door. “You don’t need to worry. The Horror likes you. We both do. Just... be careful with your rumours, won’t you?”

Allison is left standing alone in Klaus’s empty room. She knows it’s not physical cold that leaves her with goosebumps all over and a chill in her heart.

* * *

When Ben started training that morning, everything had been fine. It was ghost training and Horror training, so his injured hand didn’t slow him up at all.

They made it through the morning. The afternoon is when things started falling apart. 

Maybe if Ben had gotten himself under control and managed to stop flinching, things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. Maybe everything would’ve stayed fine.

But it wasn’t his fault, not really. What was he supposed to do about the ghosts?

The Horror shrieked its comforting cries, drowning out the ghostly screams and reassuring Ben that he wasn’t alone. During training, though, he had to focus on trying to manifest the Horror. It couldn’t devote itself to fighting off the spectres. 

So, Ben flinched. 

When a rotted ghoul with half its skin missing clawed for his eyes, he flinched, because of course he did. What if this was the time he accidentally accessed Klaus’s powers and manifested them?

After a few times, his father spoke up. 

“Is something the matter, Number Six? You are distracted.”

“The ghosts,” he said. “They’re awful. I can’t focus. I can’t bring the Horror through because of them.”

“I see,” the man said, looking at Ben critically. “You fear the ghosts. You don’t wish to manifest the Horror because you do not wish to manifest them.”

“Exactly,” Ben said in relief. Of course. Father must have dealt with this all before, with Klaus. “I mean, that’s right, sir.”

“Hmm. Most unfortunate.” He eyed the training room. “It’s highly unlikely you will be able to progress until you move past this fear. Very well. Come along.”

His dad let him stop briefly in his room to grab a sweater, and he ran into Allison. 

That… doesn’t go as planned. He doesn’t mean to scare her. It’s not his fault, though. She doesn’t seem to want to accept how wonderful his return is at face value. 

His father takes him to a squat white building in the farthest part of the property, tucked far from any prying windows. It is overgrown and discoloured with age, the polished white stone having taken on the yellowed tint of old bone. There is something familiar about it.

As soon as Ben spots it lurking malevolently at the end of the path, an instinctive pang of fear makes him slow down. 

He can feel the way Klaus’s presence at the back of his mind shrinks away, almost like he’s trying to retreat into oblivion before they can reach the old building.

Something tells Ben that the little bone-white building contains horrors unimaginable. 

A few reluctant steps more, and he recognizes the rotting old building as a mausoleum. 

Ben is used to being a thing to fear. He’s not used to the trembling, shuddering influence of fight-or-flight. He’s not used to every instinct telling him to _run_. 

“Number Six, practice directing Number Four’s manifesting abilities for your own purposes. You may leave and rejoin the others once you open the doors.”

The doors are solid and sturdy. Iron. They look newer than the rest of the building, and when his father pries the heavy doors open, they move soundlessly. There are many fine scratch marks marring the inside of the doors, he notices with a premonitory chill. _Small_ scratch marks. Some spots of flaking old blood, too, like someone had scrabbled at the rough doors until their fingers had bled.

The room is small and innocuous, but as soon as Ben sees it, his intuition screams at him. He stumbles a few steps back from the door before he can even think about what he’s doing.

As soon as Ben sees the room, he _knows_. 

“I’m not going in there!”

Father looks down at him disapprovingly. “Number Four wasn’t this cowardly when he first trained.”

For a second, Ben cannot think. He cannot even breathe. He just hears his father's words again. 

“What did you do?” Ben manages. 

“What was required in order to help him reach his full potential.”

“You locked _my brother_ in a mausoleum?” Ben demands. 

“Watch your tone!”

Father grabs Ben by the wrist and yanks him forward, expression set and grim. He drags Ben forward a few feet, but it’s difficult going because Ben’s struggling so ferociously. 

“Let _go_ of me!” Ben shouts.

Father raises his free hand, but before he can do anything, Ben’s anger reaches a breaking point.

The rage writhing in every atom of Ben’s being boils up unbearably. He calls for the Horror and it answers, eager and virtually painless. He summons it with every drop of power he can muster. There’s a dull ache in his bones, a distant soreness like muscle fatigue, the memory of pain.

He calls for it once more, drawing on his brother’s energies to drag it through the veil and into the physical world. The pain crescendos into a sharp slash of familiar pain as the portal in his chest opens and solid ghostly blue tentacles lunge out. 

Distantly, Ben hears someone scream, and he knows the Horror is visible. 

  
This time, the tentacles do not pass through his father. They wrap around him very tightly. 

“I hate you,” Ben says softly, as if just now realizing the intensity of his hatred for the first time. “I _hate_ you.”

Ben slams his father against the wall of the mausoleum very hard. “You did this! You did this to me! You did this to us! Murderer! Monster!” The Horror pulls back to hurl him against the wall again.

“I heard a rumour you let Dad go!” 

The panicked voice cuts through the red, angry haze in Ben’s mind, and he drops their father before he can even think about it. He blinks, then turns his attention to Allison, who’s looking shaky.

“Ben, please,” she begs, and then chokes on a sob, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. 

“Stop interfering!” he warns her. The Horror lunges for their father once more, but before they can attack, strong arms wrap around Ben’s upper chest and drag him back, throwing the Horror’s attack off. 

“You need to stop! You can’t kill him, he’s our father!” Luther tries, half-pleading.

The Horror swipes at Luther with one tentacle, but he holds on, squeezing Ben a bit too tightly. It swipes again, and the attack passes through. 

The Horror is ghostly and invisible once again. 

“I’m sorry,” Ben tells the upset creature as it flails, shrieking, at the walls, their dad, anything. He’s pretty sure that if it was physical while having its well-earned temper tantrum, he would’ve gotten hurt again. “Next time,” he murmurs.

With the Horror gone, Luther loosens his grip and suddenly releases him. Ben’s chest aches dully from the terrible hug. 

Luther sharply takes a breath. “Vanya, go get Mom!” he orders.

Why does Luther’s voice sound so shaky?

“B-Ben,” Vanya manages, wide-eyed and pale. 

He turns to look. His sister is teary and frightened, and when he turns fully to face her, she cries out. Ben follows her gaze, and looks down to see...

To see...

That’s a lot of blood. 

Shouldn’t it hurt more?

”Vanya, go!” orders Luther, and she stumbles a few feet back before running for the house.

Luther goes straight to their father to help, as loyal a little soldier as ever.

Ben reaches out to Allison, and for a split moment she freezes up in shock and fear. Then she rushes to him. 

“I didn’t mean to,” he tells her. His sister’s gaze is still locked on the deep wound, the exact spot where the roiling Horror, the seething corporeal tentacles, escaped his skin. His legs wobble and she eases him to the ground. She tries to press down on the wound. To her credit, she doesn’t recoil when she feels the blood bubbling up around her fingers. 

If Ben wasn’t watching her face, he wouldn’t have even noticed her silent tears. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” he insists. “I didn’t want this.”

Suddenly Diego is at Allison’s side. He takes her place, putting pressure on the wound, and Ben lets out a gasp. That _hurt_.

“Why d-did you have t-t-to—” Diego asks before his words die. He shakes his head, trying to keep it together and failing miserably.

”I’m sorry,” Ben gasps. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to stay grounded as the pain continues. His chest is wet and very warm, much warmer than his skin. He can feel the dirt sticking to him where it has mingled with blood.

A push at his mind, and Ben can’t focus enough to push back.

  
Klaus tries to force him out, and Ben is no longer strong enough to crush any resistance down. The violent shaking spreads through his body as they fight for control.

Distantly, Ben can see how Diego’s eyes light up in relief when Mom appears. He has been trying his best to stem the bleeding, but it’s so difficult with the seizing. “Y-you’re going to be okay, Mom’s here now,” Diego promises.

Mom instantly rushes to Klaus’s side. Before she can help, she is interrupted.

"Leave him!" their father snaps. He is clutching his head and holding himself up against the wall, Luther at his side. His ever-present monocle is gone, lost or shattered, and there is blood spotting the starched white collar of his shirt. 

She stares at him, and then at her son, a lost, conflicted expression on her face. She turns toward her son, bleeding and seizing on the ground, and steps toward him again.

"That is an _order!_ " he commands.

"Klaus has suffered a severe laceration, and he needs immediate medical assistance—" Mom says pleadingly.

“I did not ask for a diagnosis. Leave him!”

She looks between her children and the man who made her once more, almost desperately, but she cannot disobey her programming. She turns to Luther. "Apply pressure to Klaus’s wound. I know it's difficult because he's moving, but do your best." She glances at Diego and Allison. "If he starts throwing up, turn his head to the side so he does not choke. I will return for him as soon as possible."

With one last lingering glance at Klaus, who so urgently needs medical care, Mom reluctantly turns her back on her children. She hurriedly assists their father in standing and helps him leave, taking him to the infirmary. Dad looks concussed, Diego notices vindictively.

Klaus’s head smacks hard against the hard, packed earth as his back arches. His hand clutches spasmodically at his heart, clawing and dragging at his chest. He struggles desperately, trying to drag Ben out.

Klaus is seizing too violently for even Luther to carry him, so Luther just tries to hold him still and wait out the seizure. He can't remember if it's bad to immobilize someone who's seizing — everything is happening so fast, there's so much blood, and he can't think straight — but he's pretty sure the bleeding is more of a threat than any bruising or strain from being held still.

For all that Klaus is scrawny and gangly, he's bucking and fighting with every ounce of strength. Luther holds him down firmly, immovably, putting pressure on the sticky red shreds of cloth and the rapidly gushing wound underneath.

Ben is losing.

Klaus’s fingers dig in to his very spirit and try to wrench him out, and second by second, Ben finds himself _weakening_...

The more blood Klaus loses, the harder it is to keep possessing him.

“I heard a rumour your seizure stopped!” Allison cries out shrilly, and Ben only has time to think _oh, she sounds upset_ before everything suddenly shifts. 

One moment Ben is spasming, completely incapable of controlling his borrowed limbs as he struggles to maintain control, and then his insides suddenly tense up. 

He barely has a moment to turn his head to the side before he’s vomiting a massive amount of ectoplasm. He feels outside of his own control, like he might never stop. 

And then, just like that, he’s out of Klaus’s body. 

It takes Ben a moment to reorient himself. 

Ben is lying on ground he cannot feel, and nothing hurts anymore. He’s muted and dulled, but fine. There is no in-between, and it is completely jarring. He gets to his feet, emptiness already beginning to ache and tear at his being. 

Ben is standing, but Klaus is still lying on the floor. The seizure has stopped, and as he watches, all the tension eases out of Klaus until he’s sprawled limp and ragdoll on the muddy ground.

_Being there caused the seizure, so Allison made me leave,_ Ben realizes.   
  


He’s not as upset by being forced out as he thought he’d be. The shallow numbness is already eating at him, leaving him little more than an empty spectator to the bloody scene.

Luther is kneeling at Klaus’s side, looking disheveled. The cuffs of his white button-up shirt are dyed a deep red, and his blazer is heavily spattered with blood up to the elbows. Diego is kneeling too, his blazer gone. After a second, Ben notices the folded blazer cushioning Klaus’s head, a clear attempt to keep Klaus from hurting himself as he seized. 

Klaus’s eyes are half-lidded but glazed. He’s still unconscious. He had fallen very, very still the moment Ben was expelled. 

How long is it going to take him to wake up? It was instantaneous for Ben, after all. 

Diego has been glancing between Klaus’s chest and face, and he seems to notice something. He freezes up. “H-he’s not... h-h-h—“ his voice catches, and he gives up on speaking, his hands flying to Klaus’s wrist. Diego’s eyes well up with tears, and he touches the side of Klaus’s neck to check again. Diego tries to form the sentence for a good thirty seconds, but he can’t focus enough to form the words in his mind.

“P-p-pul- _pulse_ ,” Diego finally manages weakly. 

“What?” With Diego struggling, Luther takes over. He checks Klaus’s pulse too, while watching for any rise and fall of his chest. Luther presses his lips together tightly, trying to keep himself together. His leadership is needed now more than ever, now that he’s the only authority. 

Still, when Luther looks up, Ben can see the panic in his eyes.

Diego looks so shell-shocked and Luther looks so sombre that Ben wishes he could tell them Klaus isn’t dead. Of _course_ he’s not dead. If he was, Ben would see his ghost. Klaus would be right here, he knows it. Ben wouldn’t be alone here, disconnected from the real world once again. 

Diego starts doing chest compressions, but he’s shaking too badly to be effective. He can’t put enough strength into it. Luther takes over. Numbly, Diego presses down on the chest wound. Some blood sluggishly bubbles out at the pressure, but not much.

Luther‘s hands are steady and firm, and he looks so emotionally distant and laser-focused that Ben doubts he’s letting himself feel a thing. He pushes the centre of his brother’s chest rhythmically, occasionally checking for a pulse or for breathing. He’s almost as regular as a machine.

Minutes tick by and there’s no change.

Klaus’s face is slack and unmoving. He doesn't look like he's breathing. A bit of ectoplasm dribbles out of his mouth.

Luther counts out the compressions under his breath, pushing Klaus’s chest hard. He is pale and very shaken-looking, staring intently at his brother’s face, searching for any sign of life. 

There’s a muted _crack_ as a rib breaks from the pressure, and Luther freezes, hands hovering hesitantly over Klaus’s chest again. 

It takes a long moment for him to swallow his emotions and resume chest compressions.

The crunch of a second rib breaking under his hands is what gets him. 

Luther tries, but he can’t maintain his emotional distance anymore. Not now, not when he can feel how his brother’s chest gives too much where Luther’s broken his bones. He stutters to a halt, paralyzed by panic and grief. 

Without Luther trying to resuscitate him, Klaus is absolutely still. Completely lifeless, his half-open green eyes staring dull and blank to the side. 

Luther tries to check his pulse again anyway. 

When faced with the cold silent nothing of Klaus’s lifeless body, Luther’s face crumples, and he struggles not to cry. 

“Luther?” Allison chokes out.

Luther looks over at Allison and shakes his head, and Ben feels the ground drop away under him.

“What are you doing? Check again!” Ben insists, stepping closer. “He’s not dead!”

Diego’s not putting pressure on Klaus’s chest wound anymore. He’s holding Klaus’s hand and crying completely silently. Ben tries to grab Diego’s shoulder, but his hand passes through. “You can’t stop! He’s still alive!” He whirls around, trying to catch anyone’s attention. But the only person who could see ghosts is laid out, unmoving, in a puddle of his own blood. 

“No, no, no…” Ben kneels and tries to shake Klaus. “Come on, wake up. They think you’re dead, you have to wake up!” When his hand passes through Klaus’s skin, he doesn’t feel strange to the touch like the living always do. He feels inert, neutral. There’s no heat to Klaus’s skin, and Ben’s hand doesn’t tingle like it's asleep, the way it always does when he passes through a living person. 

Ben recoils like he’s been slapped. 

He can feel it now. That pull he’d been feeling for the last few months, that riptide drawing him inexorably back to his brother... had stopped. 

His brother’s dead body is sprawled on the ground, absolutely still and silent in a puddle of blood and ectoplasm. 

Klaus is dead, and he didn’t even leave a ghost.

Klaus is dead, and Ben killed him.

Klaus is dead and _gone_.

Ben feels the Horror churn in his gut, writhing in anguish. He sinks to ground he cannot feel as grief loops in his mind, throwing him down a new emotional spiral of no escape.

_I'm sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay Ben, maybe solving all your problems with the Horror wasn’t the smartest plan.


	3. Chapter 3

There’s a rushing sound as waves crash on the sand, and then a hiss as the water pulls back. 

Klaus opens his eyes to a grey, overcast sky, and nothing hurts. The ground he lies on is soft and uneven, and when he slowly curls his fingers he feels sand between them. 

Klaus’s mind is clear and calm — _sober_ , surprisingly — and all he can hear is the gentle inhale and exhale of some enormous expanse of water. 

Though his mind is absolutely clear, he cannot remember coming here. Can’t remember much of anything, really. Just… fighting back against Ben. He thinks he might’ve hit his head at some point; his senses had been going in and out in erratic bursts, so he doesn’t fully remember anything. How long was he fighting? Did Ben drop him off here? Klaus pushes himself up on his elbows and looks around. 

Grey sky, grey sand, grey sea stretching until the horizon. 

Huh. Weird. 

Weirder than the lack of colour is the absolute silence. What sort of ocean comes without waterlogged ghosts?

Klaus sits up, eyes locked on the sea. He waits, breathlessly, for the tranquility to break. 

Someone sighs, loud and annoyed. “You’re too early,” a girl’s voice says from behind him. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Take it up with Ben,” he says distantly, not really paying attention. “He was driving last.”

When he doesn’t even bother to look over, she asks brusquely, “Why are you staring? I _know_ you’ve seen the ocean before.”

“It’s so quiet,” he mumbles, transfixed. 

The ocean is calm, and dark, and deep, with small, gentle waves. 

Every second, Klaus thinks something will start to rise from the waters. Any second, the first rotting, fish-eaten wraith will notice him and start dragging itself toward him. He knows all too well what sort of fetid spectres crawl out of the ocean’s depths. 

That’s what had happened when his father had taken him to the coast. How could Klaus have known that it was infamous for its wrecks? He’d been seven years old and painfully naïve — actually _excited_ about going somewhere with his dad, just the two of them. Luther always talked about how much fun he had when he trained alone with Dad, and how he was pretty sure he even made Dad proud.

Klaus had wanted that, too. 

It goes without saying that Klaus did _not_ make Dad proud. He mostly just screamed himself senseless and tried to beg his father for help. Dad had been unable to calm him down enough to give him orders. Even slapping Klaus had done nothing to curb the hysterical terror. He’d cried all the way home. Six months later his father had started dragging him to the mausoleum. 

Nothing lurches from the dark grey waters, and Klaus begins to relax. The soft shushing of the waves is soothing, and he runs his hand slowly, absentmindedly, through the light grey sand at his side. He takes a deep breath, trying to find that briny tang in the air that he half-remembers, but although the air is fresh it has none of that ocean smell. Maybe that was the smell of the watery dead, not the ocean? He can’t remember. 

“Where are the ghosts?” he asks. Even with it clear and defined before him, he cannot imagine the ocean without its burden of spirits. He keeps watching, and the water continues to be placid, undisturbed in its rhythm. 

“Not here,” says the girl. Klaus finally tears his gaze away from the mesmerizing waves to glance over his shoulder. 

The girl looks a few years younger than him. Her hair falls in a long dark curtain like Vanya’s, and her expression is very serious. There’s something very old about her, something strongly _individual_ , like she is the fixed point around which everything else is centered. It doesn’t seem the least bit strange that she’s standing beside him on a desolate, wind-swept beach with no adults in sight. At the tree line, he can see the end of a flat stone path, a bike leaned against one tree. 

“Is Ben here too?”

“No. What’s left of him hasn’t arrived yet.”

Klaus lets out a breath. Somehow, he doesn’t feel relieved to know Ben hadn’t followed him.

“Where are we?”

“You’re dead.”

“Oh, is that all?” Klaus murmurs, returning his gaze to the water. “Took long enough.”

He’s glad he didn’t come back as a ghost. He wouldn’t want to haunt his family. 

He kind of pities Ben, now. His brother might’ve attacked him, but that doesn’t mean he should be stuck as one of those awful drifting hollow-eyed ghosts. 

The girl tsks. “I _told_ you, you’re too early. You can’t stay here. You’re going back.” 

Klaus jolts in alarm, scrambling to his feet. “What? You can’t do that!”

“I really can,” she replies coolly. 

“But— no— _why?_ So I can go back to being trapped in my own head? Just let me stay!” he cries. 

“You’re annoying. I don’t want you here.” She hesitates, and then relents ever so slightly. “You’ll be able to stay eventually. Right now you’re needed.”

“No, no, you can’t! _Please!_ You ca—”

* * *

Sound comes back first. If there’s any mercy here, it’s that Klaus is in a quiet place. There’s ragged breathing nearby, and muffled sobbing farther off, but no ghosts.

The first slow breath brings some relief, but not as much as it should. 

The assault is done — for now — but Klaus can’t find it in him to be relieved. He’s just so _exhausted._

Didn’t living use to be sweeter? He can’t remember. There must’ve been something pleasant about being in control. Right? He can vaguely remember taking pride in the fact that at least his mistakes were _his_ — that he was failing by his own merit. 

It’s hard to remember, when breathing scrapes his raw throat and brings everything more sharply into the now. 

Klaus’s mind feels bad, but his body feels worse. His skin is too tight, and there’s a pervasive undertone of filth to his whole body that increases as his awareness does. He feels _desecrated._

Sight fades in quickly, blackness receding to skewed tunnel vision. There's a familiar garden path, though he’s not awake enough to place how he knows it, and an orange-streaked sky, like the sun is rising or setting. Although he’s lying still, all of it is spinning dizzyingly before him. Klaus blinks quickly, trying to clear his dancing vision before it makes him throw up. The sour taste in his mouth suggests he might've already been sick.

There’s a sullied tint to every breath, to everything he sees and feels, like something vital inside him has already been deeply touched by rot. He feels like something diseased crawled into his bones and died. 

Klaus tries to move his head a little, to figure out what is going on, when there’s a sharp intake of breath at his side. Someone squeezes his hand too tightly. 

As his vision blurs and refocuses, the hazy figure in the edge of his vision shifts into Diego. 

Diego’s lips move soundlessly as he tries to make the words, staring wide-eyed at Klaus. He’s openly crying, Klaus notices with alarm. Diego’s always been one to try hiding his softer emotions, as if that would make him tougher. Finally, he chokes out, “...Klaus?”

Klaus gives him a weak smile. Everything aches, but Diego looks so grief-stricken and stunned that he has to try. “The one and only,” he croaks. With some effort, he turns his head, taking in the way Luther’s hugging Allison, the overall sombre atmosphere. "What's with the long faces? You look like someone died."

Every inhale makes Klaus’s chest throb unpleasantly. He tries to take a deep breath to assuage his dizziness.

The overwhelming stench of acrid iron makes him gag and choke on his own breath. Something in his chest flares with pain at every cough, leaving him blinking away the black spots that appear in his vision.

Coughing is agony. His breathing quickly devolves into shallow gasping again.

The coughing fit stirs Luther to action. 

In an instant, he is kneeling by his brother's side, checking Klaus’s pulse as he catches his breath. Despite Luther’s surety of movement, he looks like he’s doing everything to keep himself together. 

Klaus has a pulse. A strong, steady pulse.

Stunned, Luther pushes aside the dark shreds of Klaus’s uniform shirt. 

The wide cut, which was gushing blood only fifteen minutes ago, is gone. In its place is a healthy new scar. It stretches almost completely across Klaus’s chest, like something had tried to cut him in two. 

“How… What?” Luther manages, dumbfounded. “You’re not even hurt? You were dead. You… you were _dead._ ”

“Yeah, I got better,” Klaus says lightly. He looks around Luther, and lifts his free hand towards Allison to reassure her too. “Hey Allie, long time no see!”

“Luther, is that…” Allison rubs her eyes, and then tries again, her voice weak and thready from crying, “B-Ben?” 

“Try again,” Klaus says in as breezy a tone as he can manage. “Ben’s out right now. Leave a message and… all that.” He trails off, his energy flagging. He feels like he’s about to fall to pieces. What happened to ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’? He doesn’t even get a good rest _then_.

A flicker of motion in Klaus’s peripheral vision draws his attention, and he sees Ben. 

Ben is staring at him, stunned. 

The sight of Ben lurking threateningly nearby instantly overrides everything. His attempt to act normal to ease his siblings’ worries is forgotten. Klaus can’t shake the sickly feeling that Ben has been waiting for him, waiting to possess him again. 

The moment of eye contact seems to be enough to break Ben from his trance. 

“Klaus…” he breathes, stepping forward. Klaus doesn’t even hear the relief in his brother’s voice. The thought of Ben stealing away his freedom again, those scraps of autonomy he’s only just won back, makes his blood run cold.

Ben’s still here, and now that Klaus is alive again, he knows there’s only one thing Ben wants.

He doesn’t think he’d be able to fight Ben off a second time. 

_No, no,_ **_no…_ **

“Don’t,” Klaus begs, low and urgent. “Please.”

  
For a second, Ben freezes, stricken. He shakes his head speechlessly and, without thinking, takes another step forward, hands raised. Maybe it’s a badly-thought-out attempt at a calming gesture, maybe it’s a legitimate threat, Klaus doesn’t know. Klaus doesn’t wait to find out. 

“Don’t touch me,” Klaus insists desperately. 

Ben’s face crumples. “Klaus—”

“Please,” he breathes out. “Not yet. Just let me rest.”

Ben nods shakily, looking miserable. “Okay, I— okay.”

“What is it? Is something threatening you?” Allison asks, looking around urgently at all the quiet stillness. The ghosts have never felt like a valid threat before. 

“No, nothing,” Klaus’s gaze flicks to Ben quickly and then back to Allison. “I’m good. I was just making sure.”

“Is Ben here?” Diego demands. 

“Only in spirit,” he drawls. Thankfully, the lame joke seems to work. Allison looks a little less tense, though Diego’s still holding Klaus’s hand tightly. Ben’s finally fixating less on Klaus, but the intense way he’s looking at their siblings makes Klaus uncomfortable. “He’s around,” Klaus amends. 

“That doesn’t matter right now. Get up. You’ve got to go to the infirmary,” Luther states with renewed firmness, resuming his role as the leader. 

“Sure, yeah,” Klaus says casually. He tries to push himself upright into a sitting position, but the world spins before his eyes, and his arms shake so violently that he just crumples again. Diego quickly wraps a supportive arm around his shoulders so that he just sags pathetically instead of hitting the ground. 

  
It takes a solid minute for Klaus to recover from his painful wheezing enough to speak.

“—alright, nevermind, hard ‘no’ on walking,” Klaus says faintly. His head lolls back to rest on Diego’s arm. “Think anyone will mind if I just stay here forever?”

“I'm taking you to the infirmary right _now_.” Luther tells him in a tone that permits no arguing.

“No complaints here. Lift me into your big strong arms!” Klaus teases, throwing his arms loosely around Luther’s neck.

To his surprise, Luther actually does just that, picking up his brother in an unexpectedly careful hold. 

“Tell me if I’m hurting you, or if a ghost tries something,” Luther says shortly.

It ends up being pretty lucky that Luther is there. Klaus is an absolute twig, but he’s a tall gangly twig, and the short trip inside would have been slow, painful work with anyone else. Fortunately, Luther has his super-strength, and they’re quickly inside. 

When Mom sees Klaus, bloodied but conscious in his brother’s arms, her face lights up in a smile. “Just lay him on the bed, dear,” she instructs Luther. 

Luther complies, and then looks around. “Is Dad okay?”

Mom’s smile flickers, and her voice seems oddly cold for a moment. “Yes. Your father is perfectly fine.” She turns her attention to various pieces of medical equipment, seeming to recover her typical good attitude. “He is debriefing Vanya at the moment. He has requested to see you all at the next possible opportunity, to discuss recent events. Don’t worry, you don’t have to leave to speak with him until Klaus is stable.”

Klaus huffs out a laugh before wincing at the resulting stab of pain. “Going to be here a while, then,” he manages. 

Mom pays him no mind. She potters around, checking his vitals and injuries. She hums softly as she sees his blood pressure. After pausing momentarily to recalculate the situation, she examines the new scar more closely.

“Does he need blood?” Allison asks, looking antsy. “I can donate.”

“Yeah,” says Luther, still looking too serious.

“Me too,” Diego says almost at the same time, nervous but determined. His eyes meet Klaus’s, and Klaus smiles a little.

“That’s very kind of you all, but his blood pressure is at a healthy level,” Mom assures them. “Your brother doesn’t need a transfusion.”

“But… wait, that doesn’t make sense,” Luther interjects. “He lost tons of blood. He really is totally fine?”

“Klaus has no life-threatening injuries,” Mom confirms. She ruffles Klaus’s hair. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, but… breathing hurts. Just a little.” Klaus pauses. “But I mean, definitely enough that I’ll need painkillers,” he adds hopefully. 

“Hmm…” Mom delicately removes Klaus’s shirt in order to examine the heavy bruising on his chest, analyzing him with her advanced diagnostic equipment. “Oh dear, you have two broken ribs.”

“Are they the bottom ones? Cause I’m pretty sure I don’t need those anyway—” Klaus begins, looking completely unbothered. 

"I broke your ribs," Luther interrupts in a guilty rush. "That was me, not Ben. I did that. I was trying to revive you."

Klaus can count all the apologies he’s received from Luther on one hand, so it’s no wonder he’s so awkward about apologizing. Klaus can’t remember him ever actually saying sorry in his life. Same with Dad; they probably think it’d make them look weak or something. But this guilt-driven rush of words is painful to watch.

Luther looks really upset and Klaus panics. He’s never had to deal with emotional outbursts from Luther, and he’s not entirely sure what to do. 

“No, hey, it’s okay! You did good! I’m alive, right? I’m fine! You did everything right!” Klaus says hurriedly, patting Luther on the arm. 

"I let you die," Luther protests. "I was responsible for you and I messed up. I'm supposed to look after everyone, but I just made things worse."

"It wasn't your fault," Klaus insists, because even though he has absolutely no idea what happened, he knows he couldn't possibly blame Luther. "You did everything you could, and now I'm here and I'm fine, so don't be upset! Okay?"

Luther nods slowly, almost reluctantly.

“You didn't do anything wrong,” Klaus says earnestly, looking at his siblings. “I know you guys tried to help.”

“It didn’t do much good,” Allison says quietly. “I had the chance to rumour Ben and I didn’t think fast enough. I didn’t rumour him to leave.”

“It’s okay. I’m pretty sure you can’t rumour a ghost, anyway,” Klaus tells her.

Allison doesn’t exactly look reassured, but at least she looks a little calmer. 

For the first time since waking up, Klaus doesn't regret his new superpower. If his siblings are this worked up over him coming _back_ to life, he's genuinely grateful he didn't put them through more than he had to.

Still, he’s far too sober for all of this serious conversation, and it’s hard to comfort his siblings with the ever-present grim spectre of their brother lurking behind them. 

“So, can you hook me up with anything?” He asks Mom hopefully. 

Mom gives Klaus an apologetic look. “I am required to get permission from your father before administering you any painkillers.”

He sighs. “Figures. Dad’s always been miserly about sharing the good stuff. I mean, it’s not like he’s using it!”

They’ve been through this before. Asking Dad for drugs always ends with a stern rejection and a lengthy lecture on Klaus’s failures in life. 

“I will see what I can do,” Mom promises, and Klaus knows she means it but it’s still not enough. 

Mom turns to her other children. “Come along! You all did very well, and your brother is safe and sound. Let’s give him some space! He needs his rest.” With that, she ushers his reluctant siblings out of the room.

The room clears. 

Klaus is alone with Ben. 

He doesn’t want to interact with his brother’s ghost. He doesn’t want to risk provoking another attack. He didn’t exactly survive the last one.

But it’s so quiet. Ben hasn’t even said anything since that first panicky moment. None of the standard ghost fare, nothing.

Klaus reluctantly glances over at Ben. Ben doesn’t look aggressive or spooky, he’s just standing there silently, staring wide-eyed at Klaus. He’s biting his lip in the way he always does when he’s trying to hide that he’s near tears. 

Klaus isn’t a fool. He knows that this little sliver of time, before he can numb his powers again, is Ben’s last chance. But he also knows he can’t run — physically, he can barely stand. 

The medicine cabinet isn't far away. Maybe he can make it there and smash it open before Ben attacks him again.

Klaus sits up, and that's about as far as he makes it.

His chest screams in agony as he sits up, leaving him hunched over and wheezing thinly. His breathing is trapped, painfully tight like his ribcage shrank four sizes. Every breath seems to strain his injured ribs. He hasn't even stood yet and he already feels out of breath and dizzy.

“What are you doing?” Ben asks in evident alarm. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

Klaus doesn’t look at him. 

Shakily, Klaus swings his legs off the bed. He doesn’t try to stand yet, still trying to give himself time to gather his little strength. He’s pretty sure his legs will give way immediately if he tries right now, and his arms seem too weak if he wants to drag himself across the room. Anyhow, falling forward onto broken ribs doesn’t sound ideal. They’re aching badly enough without getting jarred around. 

Klaus tries to steel himself for the inevitable pain. He grips the bedside table with his right hand, putting weight on it. His left is still down for the count after that trick with the mirror, and really, would it have been too much to ask for God to magic _all_ his injuries better, not just his life-threatening ones?

Klaus pushes himself onto his feet, using the table for stability. He only lasts a second. The lancing pain in his chest makes him drop back down on the bed almost immediately, gasping shallowly. 

"Stop! You're going to hurt yourself!" Ben says urgently, getting closer. 

“What do you care?” Klaus snaps, exhausted. “I'm pretty sure you lost the right to tell me what to do when you murdered me!”

Ben flinches, and Klaus continues in a low voice, “You’re just worried because you want to possess me again. You’re just like Dad, you know? I’m nothing more than my powers to you.” His head drops a little, and under his breath he mutters, “I’m just damaged goods.” It’s so low Ben isn’t even sure he was supposed to hear it. 

“That’s... not true,” Ben weakly defends. “I care about you.”

Klaus just snorts in disbelief and twirls a hand with mock airiness at his blood-drenched clothing. “Oh yeah, I could tell.” He picks at his ripped-up shirt, the bulk of the thin material dyed dark with blood. 

Klaus looks up to meet Ben’s eyes. He looks jarringly worn and weary for someone so young. 

“I’m pretty sure we all expected me to die young. You didn’t need to hurry it up like that. I had it covered.” Klaus states, deliberately uncaring and closed-off. He’s trying so hard for apathetic acceptance that it’s painful to see. In the end, he can’t keep the small note of hurt out of his voice. “Why did you want to kill me? What did I do?”

Ben shakes his head, his bottom lip trembling a little. “I didn’t mean to,” he pleads weakly. “I didn’t think. It was an accident.”

“You’re losing your touch, Ben,” Klaus snipes bitterly. “You didn’t even rip me into bitty pieces like you normally do when you want to murder people.”

The second the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them. 

Ben’s hands fly up to cover his mouth. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” he whispers.

Oh, Ben really _does_ look like he’s going to cry now. 

“I didn’t mean—” Klaus begins, and then falters, because he _did_ mean it. “I know you want to get back to your whole revenge deal as soon as possible, but I feel like death. Just… would you give me a day to recover before you possess me again?”

It doesn’t feel like a negotiation, or even a compromise. More like bargaining away his own body. He hates it, but at least it might buy him time. 

  
Klaus knows better than to bet on his brother’s empathy. All the pleading in the world didn’t stop Ben last time.

If he could only delay Ben for long enough, he might get the chance to shut off his powers. 

For some reason, Ben doesn’t jump at the offer. 

“You think I’m going to— _No!_ ” Ben breaks off, horrified. “We _killed_ you and you think I’m just going to— You think I’m that—” He shakes his head, stepping back unsteadily. “I’m sorry, I— I’m sorry,” he blurts out, and then he’s gone. Vanished into the aether, or wherever it is ghosts go.

Klaus regards the space where his brother was a moment ago with a twist of guilt and sadness. Ghosts often get stuck in an emotion, he knows, and he might be upset but he doesn’t want Ben to get stuck in grief and regret forever. 

Klaus expects he’ll see Ben again. 

Whether Ben’s still remorseful or has found his way back to hostility, Klaus is planning to be good and numb by the time he returns. Protected, just in case Ben tries that horrific body-snatching shit again. 

Of course he’s angry with Ben. Ben terrorized him and stole his body and killed him, even if it was supposedly an accident. But he can’t hate Ben. He could never hate Ben, especially not now. Not when he’s seen the quietude, the _peace,_ that his brother’s barred from. Not when he’s seen what it’s like to be free of everything. 

Honestly, he forgave Ben for haunting him long ago. Possessing him… not so much. 

He isn’t too upset that he got killed, either. Being dead wasn’t so bad. Quiet. Peaceful. Pretty nice, actually. The part that hurts deeply is that _Ben_ killed him, because he had trusted Ben. He would have trusted Ben to the end of the world and back. Why did Ben have to go and attack him? Why did Ben decide to put on his face and replace him like some nightmarish monster? Did he really deserve that?

Klaus scrubs his face with his hand, trying to feel the tiniest bit more alert. He groans softly in the quiet room, letting himself drop back on the bed and shutting his eyes. 

All of his skin feels bad. Ill-fitting and greasy and absolutely horrible to the touch, like something that drowned weeks ago, like something that died and was forgotten to fester and rot.

Maybe a few hours of scrubbing at his skin will remove the disgusting, crawling feeling of _wrongness_ he feels in his own body. Or a full day of scrubbing. Somehow he doubts soap would ease that awful rotting feeling permeating his entire body. It doesn’t feel like it will ever fade. But he can’t let himself think about it. When he focuses on how horrible his body feels to wear, almost like Ben left slimy spectral traces of _death_ and _ghost_ , he fixates on it until he feels nauseous. 

The feeling of someone touching him won’t stop. He scratches at his arms, raking his nails up and down in long motions. Maybe after _this_ layer of skin his body will stop feeling so filthy.

Something’s touching his hair, he knows it. Klaus squeezes his eyes shut, trying to will away the feeling. He feels a nonverbal cry building in his throat, but he just whines softly.

Something firm and tangible grabs his wrist. 

If he’s manifested another ghost, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle it. Not now, not so soon after escaping the last savage attack. 

“Hey. Quit it. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

Klaus blinks blearily to see Diego standing before him.

“Didn’t Mom ask you to leave? You rebel,” Klaus says in a weak attempt at a joking tone. 

“I wanted to see you. What was that about?”

Klaus shrugs noncommittally, but his fingers are still tapping out his excess anxious energy. He pushes himself up on his elbows. “Y’know, I didn’t remember Benny being so bad at self-care,” he complains. “My skin feels _awful._ What did he do, drink only olive oil for a month straight? I oughta get a day off.”

Maybe he could talk Allison into making that awesome sugar scrub again. It’s been ages since they’ve stolen a few hours to bond over a mini spa day. 

Diego’s voice is strained. “You were gone for a _month_?” 

Diego looks really tense and angry. Did Klaus do something wrong?

Klaus shrugs casually, hoping Diego will follow his lead and calm down. “Don’t know. That’s what it felt like.”

Diego takes a deep breath. "Is Ben still here?"

"Why? If you want to chat, could it wait until tomorrow? Because I think I’d rather die than try that again right now," Klaus comments nonchalantly.

Diego looks horrified, and Klaus’s blasé attitude melts away. “Too soon?”

“You died thirty minutes ago! Of course it’s too soon!” Diego snaps. “And I wasn’t going to ask that! I wanted to make sure you weren’t about to get possessed again. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow to find you’ve been replaced.”

“Believe me, me neither.” He nods towards Mom’s locked medicine cabinet. “Think you could open that?”

Diego’s expression falls when he sees the sturdily locked medicine cabinet and its bounty of assorted heavy duty painkillers. “...Yeah,” he admits reluctantly. “Will drugs really keep you safe from getting attacked by ghosts?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely! Lay ‘em on me!”

Diego gives him a look. “If you overdose on painkillers after all this, I swear to God—”

“No, don’t worry! I’m good at drugs! I mean, so far, ghosts have killed me way more often than drugs have," Klaus points out. 

Diego wedges the flat of his throwing knife in the cabinet door and moves it around a lot while jiggling the handle. He pries the cabinet open in just under a minute, only splintering a little bit of the wood near the locking mechanism. Klaus is kind of impressed, actually. He’s pretty glad he recruited his brother to help him, because he knows he’d never have the patience for it.

Diego’s rummaging through the various medications and reading labels aloud to Klaus when Mom returns.

Mom glides in and spots her boys, one sitting up on the hospital-style bed and the other at the open door to the medicine cabinet. She blinks at them blankly for a second, and then a perfect smile appears instantly on her face. 

“That’s very sweet of you to help your brother,” she tells Diego fondly, laying a hand on his shoulder. “But I can take over.”

“Uh, what?” Klaus says, staring at her. 

She whirls, directing her bright smile at her injured son. “Those broken bones must be hurting. Don’t worry!” She announces cheerily. “Your father has given instructions for you to be administered pain medication.”

“Oh yes, the agony!” Klaus comments dramatically, his eyes glittering in amusement. “I’m dying. Ouch. _Big_ ouch! You’d better give me one of everything, _schnell!_ ” He tosses Diego a cheeky grin.

Mom glances at Diego too. “Thank you for the help, Diego dear, but you might not want to see this part.” She holds up a tiny glass bottle with a clear liquid inside. 

Diego pales. “Right. Uh. Just..." Diego glances at Mom hesitantly, and then leans close to Klaus and says quietly, "You'd better still be here in the morning."

“Hey, don't worry,” Klaus soothes. “I will be. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Good,” Diego says, but he still doesn't look convinced. 

“Mom's got the ghost thing taken care of with that possession vaccine, and I think I'd have to try really hard to die from a broken rib or two,” Klaus rambles, trying to ease his brother's fears with a cheery smile.

“Don't joke about that.”

“Huh?”

“About dying. It’s not funny. What if you actually die again?”

“Well then, I’ll just come back, right? No big deal.” Diego still looks tense, so Klaus adds, “I’m not going anywhere, I promise. Pinky swear.”

Diego looks at him guardedly for a moment, like he’s trying to gauge how genuine his brother is being, and then accepts the pinky swear. “Okay, good.”

“Diego, your brother needs to take his medicine,” Mom reminds gently, carefully holding the syringe out of sight. 

“Bye. I’ll see you in the morning,” he quickly says to Klaus, and then he’s gone from the infirmary.

As soon as Diego has left the room, Mom efficiently fills the syringe. Klaus watches as she wipes down his forearm with rubbing alcohol, and he doesn’t flinch when the needle slides in.

“You’ll be feeling as right as rain in no time,” Mom promises Klaus, smiling warmly. She smooths back his hair. “I’m very glad to see you’ve mostly recovered. You were looking very badly hurt for some time there.” She holds her son’s gaze for a moment, her smile a little sad. “I’m very glad to see you again,” she repeats.

Everything gradually eases into an opiate haze, and Klaus drifts along pleasantly. Vaguely, he can feel the blood and dirt being cleaned away. Sleep approaches, and he doesn’t fight it. He’s safe; there’s no reason to claw for alertness, even if the numbness is unsettling after days of sensory deprivation. 

It’s a relief to let his exhaustion overtake him. 

* * *

At one point, Klaus wakes. Nothing hurts, he realizes as he stares at the white ceiling above him. His chest is so numb it feels dead, yet another strange and alien part in this body that barely feels his. When he looks to the right, he immediately knows why. A girl with long, straight, dark hair is sitting by his bed, face hidden by the black book she sits quietly reading. 

Everything’s numb and fuzzy. It feels wonderful, if unsettling, but he knows he’s in for a world of trouble when he gets back. Diego’s going to be so pissed. 

Something’s off, but his brain is completely fogged and he can’t place his finger on it. 

“Overdose, huh?” Klaus slurs. He winces at the bright lights. “Promised Diego I wouldn’t...”

The girl looks up quickly. “Klaus, you’re awake!” she exclaims, startled.

Oh. That’s Vanya. 

“Vanya?” He mumbles. “What…”

As more pieces in Klaus’s cottony brain helpfully fill in, he realizes her outfit is navy, not black, and that there’s red edging on it. Slowly, he notices more and more small notes of colour in the room.

“Oh,” he exhales, a little relieved. 

“I’m so happy you’re awake,” Vanya says, and gives his uninjured hand a little squeeze. 

She doesn’t look very happy. She just looks anxious and sad.

“Allison says you were really badly hurt,” Vanya begins, and Klaus frowns, puzzled. 

“You weren’t there?” He asks without thinking.

Vanya’s lip starts to tremble and her eyes get all watery. “N-no,” she chokes out. 

“Whoa, hey, hey, don’t cry! I’m fine, see? Believe me, you don’t want to see something like that. I’m glad you weren’t there!”

“I’m so sorry,” she manages between shaky breaths. “I should’ve done something about Ben, but I just wanted him back so _badly…_ ” She sniffles. “I was selfish, and now you’re hurt. I didn’t help, and you could’ve _died—_!” She buries her face in her hands.

“C’mon Vanny, I’m fine! I’m good! I didn’t even need blood, right?” Vanya nods shakily, looking up to meet his eyes, and he continues, encouraged by her response. “Mom’s just keeping me in here to be safe. I’m totally fine. But don’t tell Dad! I think I deserve this... little vacation,” he says, cocky and confident and mischievous as anything. 

To hear Klaus tell it, one could almost believe he’s in the full strength of life, in peak condition, not that he was lying dead a day ago. 

He folds his hands under his head, the picture of leisure, and flashes his sister a crooked grin. “Now, are you gonna tell me what I missed during my little catnap?”

Klaus doesn’t know if they speak for a minute or thirty — morphine always has the added perk of messing with his time perception — but by the time she has to leave, Vanya’s stopped her anxious fretting.

* * *

Allison visits that night.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” she says during a lull, as she brushes out Klaus’s hair. “About Ben.”

“It’s okay,” he tells her. “I wouldn’t have believed me either.”

* * *

Diego comes by often, four or five times a day. He doesn’t say much, sometimes just glancing in and nodding hello, sometimes stopping briefly to talk about whatever dumb stunt he’s thinking about trying, or a joke he thought of that might make Klaus laugh. 

Diego always looks a little uncomfortable about dropping by, and it doesn’t just seem to be a wariness of hospital settings. 

Klaus understands completely. 

He’s had times when he couldn’t shake the feeling that his siblings were dead, too. He can’t fault Diego for needing to see that he’s really alive. 

* * *

Luther glances into the room a few times when he passes. He never stops to talk. 

Klaus doesn’t hold it against him. Luther’s always been kind of distant and awkward when it comes to socializing, anyway.   
  


The infirmary is very out-of-the-way, so Klaus knows Luther’s dropping by deliberately. The fact that he’s going out of his way to look in on Klaus is small, but enough.

* * *

Klaus gets two full days of peace. Two days of almost nonstop bliss. No ghosts, loads of positive attention from his siblings, and Mom diligently making sure he doesn’t come down from the morphine. If it wasn’t for the changing light levels, he wouldn’t even know two days has passed. He’s getting the _good_ stuff. 

Nobody will tell him the details, but he gets the gist of it: Ben attacked Dad. 

If Klaus was sober he would probably care more, but high, he is completely detached and carefree. All he thinks is _good for him_.

Klaus gets the feeling that he’s only allowed to rest because Dad doesn’t want to see him right now, and that’s perfectly fine with him. 

On the third morning, Klaus wakes to find that his thoughts are less fuzzy. When he breathes, he can feel his ribs. They don’t hurt yet exactly, but he can feel the warning tenderness when he breathes just a bit too deep, like he’s exploring a bruise. 

The ghosts aren’t back yet, not even Ben, but Klaus knows that the countdown has started. For now, he breathes easy. 

  
Mom appears shortly, bearing a breakfast tray. “Good morning, Klaus!” She says cheerily. That’s one of the nice things about Mom. Even if she is artificial, it's still pleasant to have someone act happy to see him. 

“Thanks, Mom,” he says, taking the tray. Mom beams at him. She’s made pancakes this morning, with little smiley faces on them in fruit. They’re his favourites, usually only allowed on very special occasions. 

Once he’s done eating, she asks, “How are you feeling today? Is your injury hurting you?”

“A little. I could use more drugs,” he says hopefully, turning his arm over and extending it like he’s getting ready for an injection. 

Mom smooths her skirt and gives him an apologetic look. “Your father wants to see you, first.”

“Well, what if I don’t want to see him?” Klaus asks petulantly. 

Her smile dims. “He says you cannot have any more painkillers until you have spoken with him.”

“You’re pretty mad at him, huh?”

“I don’t know what you mean. Your father is a good man. He cares for you.” She hesitates. “Sometimes he gets a little confused. That’s all.”

"Like about what?" Klaus probes. He has no real memory of what happened, but whatever made his mom start doubting Dad must've been serious.

Mom's smile flickers and vanishes. For a moment, she looks genuinely sad. Klaus is startled to see depths there, to see real grief and even guilt. "When I informed him that your injuries were potentially fatal and you required immediate medical attention, he must've misunderstood me."

"I don't think he did, Mom," Klaus says quietly.

Mom gazes off into the middle distance, her expression distant and lost for a long moment as she tries to work through the inconceivable — the idea that, maybe, the man they all rely on is a genuinely callous and cruel person. Then she recovers, smiling brightly at her son again. "Well, you're all better now, and I'm very glad that you're back with us. Are you feeling up to walking?"

* * *

Mom ends up walking him up to his father’s office, one hand on his arm in case he needs the support again. He really doubts she was supposed to do that. Somehow, it seems more like one of her own individual choices rather than Dad’s orders — their father hates it when they’re coddled, after all. Well, he’s all for his family breaking out of Dad’s coldhearted control. Yay for revolution, and all that.

Her hand is gentle on his arm, and he doesn’t protest.

Can robots get a scare? He really hopes Mom wasn’t too upset by his trip to meet the little girl on the quiet beach. 

Mom knocks on the door and says brightly, “Klaus is here to see you!”, before ushering him inside with an encouraging smile. 

“You’ll be just fine,” she promises him warmly. She glances briefly at his father — does her perfect smile falter when she looks at Dad, or is that just his imagination? — and then leaves without another word.

Father doesn’t look up from his work, deliberately ignoring his son, but Klaus isn’t in the mood to get belittled. 

“Oh, hey Dad, I almost didn’t see you there,” Klaus comments lightly. “Is that a new desk or something? New monocle? I’ve been gone for a while, not sure if you heard—?”

The man glances up — success! — looking annoyed already. Double success!

“ _Enough_ ,” he commands irritably, and Klaus trails off. His father glances at him, at the evident gingerness of movement and stiff, uncomfortable posture. “Your new ability has been noted. We will be examining it in the future. You will be exempt from physical training for twelve days. You may resume light training afterward.”

Klaus stares at him. “That’s it? Everything that happened, and that’s all you have to say?”

“If you are referring to the fatal effect that summoning the Horror had on you, that was unexpected,” his father replies in clipped tones. “If I had expected that, medical assistance would have been readily available.”

“You’re unbelievable.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “Of course you still would’ve tested it.”

“It was a rare opportunity,” his father replies callously. He clears his throat. “I digress; I did not summon you here to discuss Number Six. Starting today, Number Four, you will be required to take medication twice daily,” his father dictates in his usual imperious manner. 

“Medication,” Klaus repeats with a snort of humourless laughter. He smiles. “So? How did you like meeting _one_ ghost? Seems like you had a ball.” 

Father tenses and his eyes, locked on Klaus, narrow. Klaus knows he’s pushing the one person he really shouldn’t, but he’s never seen his dad looking rattled before. Anyhow, something about dying and coming back to life has left him feeling untouchable and reckless, so Klaus continues, “Ben’s a bit harder to order around than he used to be, huh?”

His father stares at him, tight-lipped with anger. “You are dismissed,” he snaps, but Klaus has the advantage for once. He knows he should shut up before he says something Dad makes him regret, but he can’t. For once, he’s the powerful one, holding all the cards. 

Because the thing is, Dad looks genuinely shaken.

_Meeting an angry ghost for the first time will do that to you,_ Klaus thinks. 

“Hey, why don’t you try your usual trick and send me to the mausoleum? See what comes out with me? Because let me tell you, those ghosts are _far_ worse than Ben.” He laughs, sharp and painful. “Talk about violent! You’ll love ‘em!”

Father stands, actually shaking with anger now. “Get _out_.”

“We’re gonna have a lot of fun,” Klaus says. “You know, there are a lot of ghosts here that are really _pissed_ at you—!”

Father swiftly strides forward and raises his hand, and Klaus flinches. The man pauses momentarily, taking in his son’s expression with a hint of smugness, and then he backhands the teenager hard enough to leave him reeling. 

Klaus doesn’t touch his stinging cheek, though he wants to. He just glares defiantly at his father. 

Reginald Hargreeves looks down at his adopted son disdainfully. “Get out.”

Klaus doesn’t wait for his father to hit him again. The red mark on his cheek is going to be hard enough to explain away, even if he has experience with this sort of cover-up. Now that his siblings are paying close attention to him, he doesn’t want to have to explain away a bloody nose again. He backs away, keeping the man in sight. His father watches him, as cold and aloof as ever. 

As soon as he’s in the hallway, his legs wobble a little, and he slides down the wall, out of sight. His cheek aches and he thinks it’s going to bruise again, but that’s why his dad overlooks the fact his son uses makeup, right? A bit of concealer, and he won’t have to have yet another difficult, exhausting conversation with his siblings. 

All things considered, Klaus doesn’t feel like he has lost. 

The slap is nothing — Dad has hurt him worse before. At least this time he’s not bleeding. What’s more important is that he has seen behind his father’s authority to the fear. It’s oddly satisfying to be validated like this. 

He has no idea what Ben was up to, but if it was enough to scare Dad into finally letting him dull his powers, maybe it was almost worth it. 

Klaus tips his head back, letting it rest softly against the wall. The motion is gentle enough that he shouldn't be heard, but he still freezes, waiting for any sound from his father’s office. 

It’s the thought of Dad hearing him and possibly coming outside — the thought of more — that stirs Klaus to action. 

It's too dangerous to stay here.

Klaus slowly gets to his feet, hissing in pain at the strain. He leans against the wall to catch his breath. 

It’s too dangerous to stay, but Klaus doesn’t know where to go.

He could go scrub at his skin some more. He wants to feel clean, but somehow, he doesn't think that's going to happen anytime soon. A few days without Ben has helped, but he still feels deeply wrong. 

He wants to be around people, in the thrum and happy chatter of his family, but he's pretty sure they're all still upset. 

Klaus's fingers twitch and he lets out a long breath. God, he's dying for a smoke. Maybe a joint. A joint would be nice.

He turns over the idea of sneaking out to buy a joint idly in his mind. It's been ages since he's had a smoke, and there's something delightful about having total control over a drug of choice.

It's tempting, really tempting, but he dismisses the idea. It's not his aching ribs, or how far away his usual dealer’s alley is, or the way black splotches appear in his vision when he pushes himself too hard. It’s just not what he needs or, to be honest, even what he wants at the moment. Searching for drugs is simply an impulse at this point. 

More than anything, Klaus just doesn't want to be alone right now. He wants to sit with his head on Allison's shoulder and talk about nothings. He wants to pester Diego for a hug, or do stupid stuff with him.

Klaus just wants to be held. 

He really, really wants to be held. 

The pervasive ache in his ribs is nothing. After a hellish eternity locked away, unable to feel anything at all, he just wants a goddamn hug. 

Klaus pushes off from the wall, and leaves to find a sibling willing to put up with him. First stop, Allison’s room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t you love a happy ending? ;)
> 
> If you have a minute, I’d love to hear what you liked!


End file.
